Buryu Yokai
by Falcon's Hyperdrive
Summary: She comes from another world, where her new Saiyan blood is fiction, and hides away on Earth to come to terms with this. However, her isolation ends when she's asked to help against the androids to come in one year. Her secrets are closely guarded, but how far will she go to keep Vegeta from finding her out? Or will she learn that the control she seeks isn't always so necessary?
1. Chapter 1: World on Fire

Rating this T, though contains violence, bits of language due to how the characters speak, and references I'm not entirely sure about. There will never be anything even bordering on sexually explicit, though, ever. Let me know if you think the rating needs changed.

This fan fiction will combine elements from both the manga and the anime. It is AU from the start, and especially diverges from the canon around the time Goku returns to Earth after Namek. How it changes, you'll find out eventually. One way, as you already know, is that Bulma and Vegeta do not get together and have Trunks. I am a big Bulma/Vegeta fan, but I thought I'd do this differently. And all non-canon characters are my own invention.

I'll do what I can to keep Vegeta from getting too OOC. This is Vegeta/OC, but it's going to take a while to get there, I'll go ahead and warn you. I'm working on chapter fourteen as of this moment, and it still isn't there. :-P Please let me know what you think, and I hope this is as enjoyable to read as it is to write.

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_**Buryu Yokai**_

By Falcon's Hyperdrive

A.k.a., Fuzzy Slipper

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_Part One:_

_The Woman From Another World_

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**Chapter One: World On Fire**

When she awoke, the land was burning. Lavender grass blazed green and turquoise under the scorching blue sun of a late afternoon, filling the superheated air with acrid yellow smoke that burned her lungs and sent her back to the ground before she could push herself up properly. She fell into wracking coughs, curling up in the pain of the fit as a sleek black tail, matching the thick mane of her hair, spasmed once then lay limp on the ground.

As the coughing faded away, light brown eyes released a hard tension in the eyelids and brow and hung open, glazed and unseeing. Pink lips, marred by a dried scab of blood where some impact had split the skin, stayed parted to pull in air choked with the poisonous fumes. Her hands, laced with bloodied scratches and mottled bruises, twitched once before she stilled, opening from tightly balled fists where her fingernails, cut short, left crescent indents in the pale ivory flesh of her palms, one of which was crossed by an angry red cut where whatever she had been working on had slipped and bit into the epidermis with a jagged edge. Her arms could not be seen beneath the bloodstained grey fabric of her hooded sweatshirt, but her wrists―or what was visible of them―bore the same scratches and bruises as the hands connected to them, and were thin and bony. The sweatshirt hung loosely about her frame, as did the thick khaki pants which were three sizes too big, held in place by a sturdy black belt strung through the belt loops of the trousers. Her feet were bare, and the soles were caked with dried mud that did not match the surrounding soil, dribbling beige debris onto blackened red dust. Any blisters or calluses were concealed beneath the layer of filth, which coated the entirety of her feet and the cuffs of her pants which covered her heels and arches with their extra length. Her face, almost skeletal and sporting spectacular fading bruises on her split lip and around her left eye, fell lax as numbness set in, and her eyelids slowly lowered over the glassy orbs they were made to protect.

Consciousness was leaving her, though she wasn't sure if she even held it in her grasp at all when she saw the alien landscape. She watched, hardly registering the movements, as the blazing field around her and the abandoned village of mud huts and now ashen roofs spread their hungry fire in an ever-expanding circle. The hot wind, fed by the inferno and its currents, kicked a stand of burning embers into the air, leaving them to tumble, still glowing red-hot, down past the cracked and crumbling walls to land on the prone black appendage resting behind the battered and exhausted figure. A moment passed, then two, and the searing agony finally blasted past the encroaching darkness of her mind to her pain center and set it to blaze as hotly as the field around her. Arching her back with the onrush of energy, the woman let out a strangled but piercing scream, then surrendered to oblivion.

**. . . **. . . **. . .**

Three men were flying over a purple landscape with the attitude of bitter satisfaction. They moved without the aid of an air car or jet cycle, two giants trailing after a shorter form whose hair seemed to be making an attempt to make up for his lack of stature. It bent backward under the force of the figure's velocity, dark brown locks appearing almost black in the light. A matching band of fur wrapped around the waist of his white battle armor, under which he wore a bright blue suit of expandable fabric. His hands were clad in white gloves, his feet in white boots tipped in gold, and the shoulder guards of his armor stood as proud gold sentinels on either side of his head. His towering companions lacked the blue bodysuit, instead clad in black shorts beneath armor which served as dark shadows of their leader's. Where gold had been, tan replaced it; where white had reigned, dark blue or black took its place. White trimmed the sections of armor, with brown leather or rope coiled around the wrists of gauntlets and around the ankles of their boots. On the left figure, a black carpet of hair reached past his knees, an impressive feat especially when taking into account just how tall the man was. Matching him for height, his companion was completely bald but, while the other was clean shaven, sported a thin goatee complete with mustache. Both had broad chests which rivaled barrels, and thick arms and legs were almost like tree trunks attached to their torsos, built of muscle and impossible to attain for even the largest human bodybuilder. They, too, wrapped a belt of fur around their waists, and to an oblivious observer that might have been all they were, but a twitch of muscle betrayed to drifting plumes of smoke that the belts on the three were, in fact, thick tails tucked up and out of the way.

The foremost figure, though shorter than the two following, lost nothing in the way of bearing, his higher status screaming through his dress, his stance, and the way he regarded the two behind him. He was authority, and though he seemed a shrunken version of his towering subjects, the Prince of the Saiyans held an aura of power about him that almost crackled in the heated air, still loose and barely restrained after what couldn't even be considered a battle.

Carpet-hair let out a sharp laugh. "Pathetic creatures didn't even put up a fight. What a waste of time."

"Shut it, Raditz." Baldy scowled at the lower-class soldier, his already sour disposition worsened by the pitiful resistance and the denial of a challenge. "Your complaining is grating on my nerves."

"Oh, sorry, Nappa. I didn't realize you had switched personalities with Zarbon." Raditz's voice gushed sarcasm, and earned him the dirtiest look the older warrior could muster. Their short tempers, however, had nothing on their prince's.

The youngest of them didn't even turn when he snapped at his men. "Silence, both of you." Vegeta gazed straight ahead, sights fixed on the horizon where they had landed their pods. Regardless of how little he liked it on Frieza's ship, he had no desire to remain on the newly purged rock. The fires were beginning to spread from the villages, the grass extremely flammable and undesired by the planet's buyers. The flames would be allowed to continue unabated, and would either consume the thick, plum forests that stretched across the higher altitudes or the moisture in those regions would overpower the searing blaze. The smoke, thick and yellow, was starting to irritate his nostrils, and Vegeta saw no reason to stick around and bathe in the noxious fumes. He prepared himself to announce this, venting his own frustration with the situation, when the beeping of his scouter caught his attention, coupled with a faint scream at the edge of his range.

The three stopped and hovered in midair, each putting a finger to their scouters. "That was in the direction of the first village," Nappa announced. "I thought we wiped that one out completely."

"So did I," Vegeta agreed, frowning. "Perhaps we missed one, somehow. Whatever it is doesn't have much of a power level. Ten at most."

Raditz tapped his own scouter, green to Nappa's blue and Vegeta's red. "I thought it said a hundred, there, for a second."

"Your scouter must need repairing," Nappa said with a sneer. "Should we check it out, Vegeta?"

"We have to." Vegeta shot off toward the source of the mysterious power level, knowing that it had not been there a few minutes ago. "Come on, you two, I want to be off this planet before the smoke stains my armor."

**. . . **. . . **. . . **

They found her curled up around an object tucked well out of sight in the shelter of her body. She looked…_wrong_ somehow, and Vegeta decided it was the strange clothes and the mud too yellow for this world. He had flown everywhere on the planet, dealing death to the inhabitants, and nowhere had he seen this color of dirt. Then, too, there was the conspicuous lack of any other vessels, not even a crashed ship. It was possible someone might have come and gone, but surely their scouters would have picked up on that.

Raditz knelt beside the prone form. "Where did she come from?" he wondered aloud, voicing the question that rattled in Vegeta's mind. "She looks like she's been a prisoner of some sort."

"Is she dead?" he asked, frowning at the inconclusive results his scanner was giving him. Raditz checked her pulse at her neck and shook his head, brow furrowed.

"She's alive, but probably won't be for long if she's not given medical care. What-" He broke off, shoulders going rigid, and stared in plain shock at the female scrunched up on the ground.

"What is it?" Nappa demanded.

"She's—" He took her shoulder and pulled gently, turning her onto her back. She flopped limply, all muscle control gone, but in that action she released what she had been holding. A tail, black as obsidian, curled through her legs, so still it might have been a stuffed sock. Vegeta knelt in awe beside her and reached out to touch it, gloved fingers grazing the warm limb. When she suddenly gasped and arched her back in reaction to the touch, he jerked his hand back as if burned.

"Holy shit, it's real." Nappa took a step back in his surprise, and Vegeta well understood the sentiment. He felt lost suddenly, unsure what to do. She was a Saiyan, a Saiyan _female_, and she was alive. How was she alive?

"Vegeta, the smoke is in her lungs. And if Frieza finds out about her, she'll be killed on the spot. What are we going to do?"

Killed? No, she couldn't be killed, not the only remaining Saiyan female left alive in the universe. The thought made him nauseous, and spurred him into action. He leaned forward, then tucked one arm under the woman's knees and the other under her upper back, and lifted. His subordinates followed silently as he took off for the pods, and he used the quiet moment to evaluate the creature in his arms. She was small, her eyes coming to the level of his nose if she were standing, he figured, and he felt a flash of male pride in being taller than her. But she was frail, unhealthily scrawny, and her skin cracked and leaked drops of blood in the dry heat. The first aid kit might be able to keep her from dying, though, and he knew he should try to get some nutrients into her before the hibernation cycle kicked in on the space pods.

They all touched down next to the pods and Nappa immediately fetched the kit and an oxygen tank. As the elder warrior prepared an injection of nutrients and a hydration drip, Vegeta took the mask attached to the tank and gingerly fitted it over her face. He didn't think she was severely injured anywhere other than her hand, as he couldn't spot any fresh blood spotting her clothes, and observed the way the cloth covering her torso concealed her form. It looked baggy enough to hide her tail, and with great care he maneuvered it to wrap around her waist with as little touching as possible. She didn't react this time, and then Vegeta spotted the small burn and grimaced at the thought that he might have touched that and caused her more pain earlier. Raditz also spotted the wound, and passed some burn cream and antiseptic out of the box to his prince.

Once the wounds were taken care of, Vegeta tucked the thick fabric down over the tail and into her trousers, trusting the belt to hold the garment in place without the tail escaping. His own tail ached at the thought of cutting hers off to hide its existence, and immediately he banished the consideration from his mind and busied himself with the drip that Nappa handed him.

All matters finally taken care of, Vegeta was satisfied that the female would live to reach Frieza's ship where they might provide better care. "There is more room in my pod, so she will ride with me back to base. When we return, we will claim a ship crashed as we were laying waste to the planet, and that we found her as the only survivor. I am going to ask for her as our slave, and pray that Frieza is generous."

His fellow Saiyans nodded their assent. He knew he wouldn't have to warn them not to touch her, for as prince it was only right that he take her as consort, should she permit it. He wasn't entirely sure what he would do if she did reject him, but decided to think on that later. The survival of the Saiyan race was not even plausible if she didn't even live through being brought before Frieza. All he could do, then, was hope and pray that this worked.

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_**Edited 9/29/14**_


	2. Chapter 2: Cold World

Thank you to those who have read, favorited, and put this on their alerts list, and thank you, **Wilhelm Wigworthy**, for your comments. I hope the emotional and character development works out well, and that you all enjoy it as it happens.

I'm taking some old trends in fan fiction, here, and hopefully my twist is original enough or new enough. Feel free to let me know if you think Vegeta is getting too OOC. I tried to work him back toward how he is in the manga/anime by the time it reaches that point in time, but that'll be a few chapters yet.

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**Chapter Two: Cold World**

She felt numb, limp, like a Raggedy Ann doll thrown over the shoulder. Her last encounter with her captors taught her that it was best to retain that sensation, lest they add to her many bruises and possible other injuries. Besides, waking fully meant feeling the despair again, the depressing hopelessness that was now her life.

Events were blurred inside her mind, her latest escape attempt the last thing she even vaguely recalled. She had… She had gotten the door open, she thought she remembered, slicing her palm on the dissected control panel when escaping a shower of sparks, and perhaps she had managed to make it outside without being noticed. Her feet felt crusty, so maybe she had gone through mud to get away, but it seemed she had collapsed along the way and had been recaptured. Cold metal restrained her hands, and her body did little to warm the steel that made up the floor beneath her. Voices buzzed overhead, so they were probably waiting for her to wake up before the torment began, and so she did her best to remain unresponsive even as she scratched her way to awareness.

Wait, steel floor? Her prison had concrete. Where had they taken her now?

The first voice was speaking again. "Good work, Vegeta, you have done well. For a monkey." That voice was high and scratchy and sneering, and she knew she had heard it somewhere before. But Vegeta was the name of a manga and anime character… Why were her captors watching Dragon Ball Z?

"Thank you, Frieza." And that was Vegeta's voice, straining to retain some facade of respect. She didn't remember this scene, but it had been a while since she watched the anime. She had only ever gotten up to the middle of the Namek Arc, too, but this had to be before he and Nappa went to Earth, or a flashback.

"Now, explain the presence of this…female."

"A ship crashed as we were finishing with the clean up. This woman was the only survivor. Her survival is uncertain, but if she does live I request her as part of the payment to my men and I, as a slave to serve our…needs."

Okay, that was definitely not something she remembered. Her eyes felt glued shut, and her lids fluttered as she struggled to open them. This situation felt extremely wrong, wronger than wrong even. If she could see, then maybe she could begin to make sense of it.

"An interesting request, Vegeta. And why should I grant you this?"

"My men have worked hard, but they have needs that I'm sure you wouldn't want us contaminating your slaves with. She'd be given regular contraceptives, of course, until we dispose of her when she bores us. A half breed brat is no proper spawn at all, anyway."

Her skin crawled, not liking in any way the manner in which they spoke of this girl they referred to. But why was this even in a kid's cartoon? Sure, it had its perverted moments, like with Oolong and Roshi and then Goku's early methods of identifying girls and boys, but talks of…rape, and sexual slavery? This was gross, and they never would have added this to the show.

Finally, she blinked her eyes open and found her gaze met with grey steel and…clawed, pink feet? A twitch of the eyeballs to the left, and her heart stopped beating when she found herself looking straight into the black pupils of a white, pink, and purple alien being whose nasty grin spoke of pure evil.

"Well, well, it seems the little toy is awake. Welcome, puny slave, to my ship. It seems yours had an unfortunate accident. Your new life, if you even live through this day, is at my whim. Do you understand this, or do you need smaller words?"

When she could only stare, no breath in her lungs, he laughed high and long, joined in cackling by his military court. "A proper measure of fear in this one! Very well, Vegeta, take her. She bears too much a resemblance to you monkeys anyhow, so I think my men would puke on her if they tried to use her. She looks so fragile anyway, I think you'd kill her yourself your first go."

Bile was creeping up in her throat, but she held it down in terror of the violent overlord's reaction to her dirtying his floor. Firm hands touched her shoulders, and she only had time to glimpse a towering mane before she allowed the darkness to pull her consciousness away.

**. . . **. . . **. . .**

She woke alone this time, feeling a bit more clean physically but with the sickening sensation that knowledge of her new fate was bringing her. Her previous captors had never touched her with the intent to use her sexually, though they had groped her to humiliate her many times, and now the idea of being used as an unwilling whore for three Saiyans—

Choking on tears and curling up on herself, she ignored the pain in her limbs and the lack of restraints and gasped for breath at the memory of seeing Frieza. That he existed—that was impossible, wasn't it? And now Vegeta, he wanted her to—but he was alive as well, and this really, really couldn't be happening, could it? Warm fur tickled her nose and she brushed it away, not registering at first the black tail waving in front of her eyes. But when she felt the action in the base of her spine, she focused her gaze in on the flagging limb and felt her blood run cold.

"What the hell?" she gasped out, hearing her voice rasp in her throat from disuse and abuse. The memory of acrid smoke was faint, as was the searing agony of hot embers landing on this same tail, and she clapped a hand over her mouth in an effort to hold back her hysterical scream. _I have a tail. I have a _tail_. I'm a Saiyan now? But that's not possible. I'm dreaming, I have to be, trying to think of anything that might be worse than where I was. Oh, God, please let me be dreaming._

She heard a noise at the door, and instinct told her how to wrap her tail around her waist, beneath the oversized shirt she wore. Only then did she notice how she was in different clothes, and went pale at the idea of a man changing her. Because there were only male Saiyans left, she knew, and there was absolutely no way any of them were going to let Frieza know that she, a female of their species, existed.

The door opened, and a towering bulk entered, crowned with the bald head of Nappa. She stared, he stared back, and when the equally tall form of Raditz and the much shorter body of Vegeta came in she found her eyes flickering between the three as potent fear coursed through her veins.

Vegeta walked forward to the foot of the bed on which she lay, and she froze at his proximity and hugged herself tighter. He held his hands up in a gesture of peace, but the action did nothing to calm her, and he sighed and crossed his arms. "Relax, woman. We are not going to hurt you, or touch you in…that way. I apologize for the fear I have caused you, but the ruse was necessary if I wished to keep you alive and in my protection."

She let herself focus on that last word, and echoed it back. "Protection? From—from him?"

There was no doubt who "him" was, and she watched as Vegeta nodded. "Yes. If he knew of your identity as a member of my people, you would be ruined and murdered within the hour."

"I think I'd rather you kill me yourself, before that happened." She saw the nauseous look on each of their faces at her words, and finally felt a little safer. "How did I get here?"

"We found you abandoned in the middle of a village on Corusa. As near as we can figure, someone left you to die while we were purging the other side of the planet. Do you remember anything of what happened? How did you even escape the destruction of our world?"

"I—" She swallowed, and then took a deep breath before taking the truth and twisting it around. Blank spaces allowed others to fill in the gaps with their own assumptions, and that would work best for her now. "I don't know. I know its name, remember that much, but—I don't remember much before I became a prisoner of…I don't even know who he was. Or, God help me, why they even wanted to kidnap me in the first place. I was—I was nothing, and then…dirt."

"You are not dirt, or nothing," the male standing next to her bed growled suddenly, and she cringed back on instinct. Immediately he seemed to regret his tone, and stepped back to give her a bit more space. "What is your name?"

"Ko- Kokoro, sir."

"Hnn. I am Vegeta, Prince of the Saiyans, and these are Nappa and Raditz. If we are in the presence of anyone outside this company, you will address us with 'Master' or 'Sir,' understood?"

"Ye—Yes, Prince Vegeta." Her tail felt a little cramped, and she rubbed at it a little but kept it hidden. Seeing this, Vegeta nodded in approval.

"Keep that out of sight, or the fate I spoke of could soon be yours. In fact, you'll mostly be staying in this room for the indeterminable future, but it'd be good to keep up the habit of hiding it anyway. You absolutely _cannot _allow it to be seen. Nappa, options?"

The bald tower walked to one of the other beds and sat down, copied in this action by Raditz. "We can't keep her here long, Frieza will be expecting us to grow tired of her or kill her with our strength before too much time passes. Allowing her to heal gives us some leeway in finding a solution, but I doubt we'd have more than a week for that. Then two more weeks after, and I figure we'd be expected to have lost control and have killed her by then."

"We need a planet," Raditz chimed in, "one which can support her but allow her to avoid discovery. She would be there for a long time, though, however long it takes us to finally get rid of Frieza."

"Then begin the search, but do it discreetly. The others will question why we want an uninhabited world, and we cannot afford that," Vegeta answered. Kokoro wasn't sure if she preferred being spoken to directly or being spoken about as if she weren't there, but kept quiet in hopes they would continue to ignore her. Next, though, Vegeta came closer and held out a hand. "Let me see your palm," he ordered, and she stiffened. Disobedience was a bad plan, she figured, and began to lift her right hand, but then paused when she realized he must want to see the cut on her left hand and offered that to him.

He grunted and took a firm grasp of her wrist, holding her arm in place as he undid the bandages she only just noticed. The skin on her palm was marred by a pink scar, but whatever medicine they had in this universe clearly worked, and she was allowed her hand back without needing it rewrapped. But he made a beckoning motion next, and at her questioning look he sighed. "Your tail next. You had a burn on it from some debris on Corusa. I promise not to grip to immobilize and pain."

Because that could easily happen, she remembered, recalling moments in the manga and the anime where Goku discovered this downside of his tail. Hesitantly, she uncurled it, thinking it strange to have this extra limb, and allowed him to inspect the spot on her tail where another bandage had been unwrapped. He touched only with the tips of his fingers, the sensation strange in and of itself, but made no other move to come in contact with the sensitive appendage. She shoved down the tingles as she waited for his pronouncement, and at his nod she retracted her tail and wrapped it around her waist once more.

"Raditz will fetch you food," Vegeta told her next, though he didn't move away from the side of her bed. "After this, you will sleep."

She nodded, liking the sound of that. She had spent a long time unconscious, but already she felt bone weary and the oncoming weight of exhaustion on her eyes. And food, she could do with food. But she didn't remember the last time she ate, especially anything substantial, so she feared overdoing it and told the prince that.

"As expected. Raditz, make sure it is light fare. Soup and fruit, if you can get your hands on that."

Raditz nodded and left, and Kokoro followed his exit with her eyes. He would die soon, she realized, and suddenly she wanted to curl up and cry again. Vegeta seemed to recognize this, for he stiffened, made an aborted movement with a hand, and then turned and walked away. Assured for the moment that she would be safe in the presence of these men, she turned onto her side and lay staring at the wall. This was her reality now, and she regretted instantly any fanciful wish she might have made in her younger years to be here.

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_**Uploaded 9/29/14**_


	3. Chapter 3: World of Weakness

Thanks for the favorites and the watches, guys. I'm trying to add in more to the chapters in this first part, so things may appear and disappear or get edited. I'll let you know at the beginning of each chapter if I've messed with the previous ones, and which specific ones, and at the end of each chapter you'll see a line that says "updated -date-" or "edited -date-" that will let you know if it's been fiddled with recently.

As a note on how things are spelled, I decided to go with the Wiki and FF-dot-net spelling of "Frieza" rather than the spelling I was originally going to go with, "Freeza." Quick question, and it's something I'll need help with soon, is it "Bulma Brief" as the site shows or is it "Bulma Briefs" as I seem to remember it being said sometimes?

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**Chapter Three: World of Weakness**

Kokoro spent the next five days in that bed, getting up only to use the washroom, inevitably with someone hovering close at hand when they were around—and one usually was. Her three new companions seemed to panic every time she so much as stumbled, and had she not been so distraught over being in what used to be a fictional world among a crew of planet-killers, she might have thought it amusing. The hierarchy was quickly established, with Vegeta reigning supreme in their shared quarters but remaining very much aloof, never snapping at her but determinedly keeping his distance. Nappa was the one who took care of her the most, and she struggled every time to reconcile this image of him with the one built up in her head by his enthusiastic destruction of that Earth city and his equally vicious murder of Tien. Raditz didn't hang around her much, getting her food but not having much more a part in her life than his silent presence. He often argued with Nappa, until Vegeta inevitably silenced the both of them, and the resulting brooding silence was what she would fall asleep to, preferring to deal with her nightmares rather than short tempers of the Saiyan males.

She knew she bothered them with her nightmares, could see the confused mixture of frustration at their helplessness, weariness from their interrupted sleep, annoyance at her weakness, and territorial anger at whoever had caused her this lasting pain. She supposed they did consider her as theirs, whether she was a slave or not, and wondered in her more clear-minded moments what role they assigned her in their minds. She thought of alpha males and wondered if, as the only female, this automatically made her Vegeta's mate, of sorts, and felt a quiver of irrational fear at the thought. He had promised not to touch her, had promised they wouldn't touch her, but after he killed Frieza and was free to reclaim his life? Would he claim her, regardless of how she felt about the matter? The topic went undiscussed, however, unspoken even in the quiet hours of the night when she lay awake in the echoes of her darkest fears and memories.

Frieza featured prominently in a good portion of her nightmares. It was strange; she hadn't ever thought she could fear anyone more than her captors, who had such a tenacious desire for vengeance against her for what she had done inadvertently to get in their way. She did remember, despite what she told Vegeta, but how was she to inform him that she was human last she knew, and he was just a character in a manga? But Frieza—his leer burned darkly in her mind when she closed her eyes, and his words froze her ears and sent her shaking. And his power—she could sense it, a malicious, flaming beacon amidst what might as well be dim sparks in comparison. Even untrained, she felt it day and night, a reminder of the danger so close at hand._ "Your new life, if you even live through this day, is at my whim,"_ he had said, and his point was very clear to her; Frieza hated the Saiyans, and one wrong move from them was sure to get her killed, never mind the idea of her new species being found out. The tail mystified her, worried her, and even though the others actively avoided touching it she feared her reaction should they do so, new as the sensations would be. She knew it could cause debilitating pain, but when Vegeta had examined her injury there had been nothing of that. Pain and pleasure—always there was this dichotomy in the body, no matter how willing or unwilling she was. And in thinking about that, she wondered if the others expected her to already know she was to run to Vegeta's arms when the time came.

The remainder of her bad dreams featured her kidnappers, but her nightmares were about Vegeta, too, sometimes—his words in the throne room fueled these, regardless of his behavior afterwards. She didn't trust him, had not seen the fulfillment of the Namek Arc and where his reluctant alliance with Gohan, Krillin, and Goku led him; she hadn't even seen Goku's arrival, actually. That future, if she didn't mess things up between now and then, would determine whether or not she could even begin to trust him. She was decided in this resolve: if he continued to purge planets, continued to welcome the thrill of killing, rather than just fighting, she would run, run as far and as fast as she could. And if he caught her, would not take no for an answer, she was broken enough to kill herself and end it all.

Nappa pushed a spoonful of soup at her. "Eat up, kid, you need the nutrients and I know you hate the shots."

They had been giving her injections ever since she first woke up in their room, and her terror of them was more than her terror of needles at the moment so she didn't resist, and learned that as of yet she needn't fear sedatives or other drugs. But they knew, knew how much she hated them, and Nappa's warning made that clear. "Can't I just eat the soup and go without the shots?" she griped, annoyed enough to ignore her wariness at his proximity. She wondered if she had a phobia of men in general, and wouldn't be surprised if a psychiatrist announced this very diagnosis.

"Nope. You've been too long without proper nutrients and as a Saiyan you have a much higher metabolism. You're eating more, yes, but you have a lot to make up for."

Kokoro made a face. "Isn't there anything I can swallow?"

"Nope."

"Splendid." She let her expression twist in distaste, and then blinked at her next thought. "Can— Can I try giving myself the next one? I don't like the thought of sticking a needle into myself, but if I had some level of control in the process, then maybe…"

Nappa ruffled her hair before she could thwart his gigantic hand and shoved the bowl at her. "Eat that on your own without spilling things, and I'll consider it."

Oh, yes, the reason why he was still feeding her himself—her hands always shook, and often spilled more soup than she managed to get into her mouth. Sighing, Kokoro nodded her agreement to the decision. Brushing her hair out of her face, she picked up the spoon and scowled at the trembling limb.

Her hair had changed, she had noticed the first time she looked in the mirror, and even before then when she first touched it in a moment alone. It was fuller, thicker, and seemed to float sometimes due to that thickness, but it was amazingly soft somehow. She had thought it would be like stiff wires with how it held itself, but sometimes she compared it to a kitten's fur and smiled in amusement at her own whimsy. It stayed back well enough on its own, but sometimes pieces of it did fall in her face, though she only really cared about that when she was eating.

Nappa stood back as she struggled to feed herself, and looked pained at the sight. "How long did you go without proper feeding?"

She paused, spoon halfway to her mouth, and watched as the broth spilled back into the bowl. "A while," she answered in a flat tone, not wanting to remember, and went back to eating.

Vegeta returned from training with Raditz, and scowled at her struggles. "Nappa, help her."

"She wants to try giving herself the injection. I told her if she ate that on her own without spilling it, I'd think about it."

"Absolutely not. I won't have her injuring herself in her grasping at independence. When she's safe on a world far out of Frieza's reach, fine, but for now we need to help her work towards surviving on her own, and wasting food is not going to help that."

Kokoro didn't bother reminding him that she was right there, content enough to be ignored for now. She cursed under her breath as her next spoonful fell back into the bowl. Something caught in her throat, and she bit hard on her lower lip to hold it back, recognizing her own tears of frustration. She had managed well enough before she escaped, but she hadn't been able to afford wasting one scrap of gruel, and they didn't feed her a liquid like this was. Bread was so much easier to hold on to.

Her eyes lit up at the thought, and she turned to a wavering Nappa. "Is it possible to have bread as well, to soak in the broth? If not this time, because I doubt Raditz would be allowed back in the cafeteria right now, but next time?"

Nappa huffed and grabbed the bowl from her. "Next time, fine. I think you're ready to have something more substantial, and you're keeping the fruit down all right."

Kokoro beamed at him, and Vegeta growled. When she stiffened, expression going blank, he sighed and moved away, and she forced herself to relax. Nappa held out a spoonful with a rueful chuckle, and she took in the bite with a sullen grunt. "You don't trust us much, do you?"

"No." The word was out before she could even consider lying, and kept her eyes down to avoid their pitying looks.

Nappa didn't hesitate long, and sighed. "Don't really blame you. But you have our words, we'll protect you even from ourselves."

In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought the saying went, and shook her head. "Still don't trust you."

Instead of replying to that, Nappa held up yet another spoonful. "Eat up," he instructed, and she figured that was the best reaction she could hope for.

**. . .** . . .** . . .**

_"Hey, Koko, what are you doing out here?" The tall redhead settled down next to her, and Kokoro leaned against her brother's shoulder. _

_"It's stifling in there," she answered, voice low. She knew what he was seeing: shadowed eyes, flat and dead, with tears hovering right at the edge. Her hair, soft and black, hung long down her back, and she fingered the limp strands with a strange sense of loss. Why should she already miss her hair when she hadn't cut it yet?_

_"It's called a safe house for a reason, Koko, and you know Shiroi won't like that you're out here alone."_

_Kokoro flopped back in the cold grass and stared up at the craters of the full moon. "I feel caged and I don't know why."_

_"It's not like you've been out of those guys' clutches very long, you know, of course you still feel caged. You're not free yet."_

_Her brow furrowed. This conversation was strange… She had been kidnapped, yes, but not until after her family was put in a safe house. This comment was out of place—was she dreaming, instead of revisiting a memory? Of course she was, remembering things that hadn't happened yet should have been her first clue. _

_Kokoro's brother stood up and brushed grass and dirt from his trousers. "You know, you're putting us all in danger just by sitting out here." For a moment, his face flashed to her kidnapper's and her breath caught. "Come on, before you kill me again."_

_A gunshot exploded, and she lurched forward to catch her brother as he fell. "Yuu!" she screamed, fingers clenching in his shirt. "Yuu, talk to me!"_

_His lips split in a bloody grin, and Frieza's voice emerged. "You kill everyone you care about, don't you? You can't do anything right!"_

_She resisted the urge to throw the body away from her, and instead flung the smoking pistol in her hands as far as she could. It fell into the darkness, clattering against concrete which shouldn't actually be there. From her arms, her brother blinked up at her. "Why, Kokoro?"_

_It was his own voice this time, and she sobbed. "Because I couldn't do anything else. Because I couldn't save you any other way. I'm sorry, Yuudai. I'm so, so sorry."_

_A foot slammed into her side, breaking her grasp on her older sibling and knocking the air out of her lungs. She was sent rolling, and curled up around her kidneys in a feeble attempt to protect them. Her eyes found pink clawed feet, and she followed the form up and up to a nasty leer, short stature belying the enormous power within. Frieza stood next to her captor, and they laughed at her. "Useless b##," they jeered. "Can't even break right. There's no escape, you know. You'll never get away. Your life is ours."_

_"No!" she shouted at them, ducking her head lower. "I'll die first!"_

_"So do it," the human beside Frieza scoffed. "There's really nothing stopping you. Everyone you had left is dead now, because of you."_

_Frieza lit a ball of ki at his fingertips. "I'll make it easy on you, monkey. After all, why should you get any choice in the matter?" The unnatural blue light cast his face in sharp shadows and enhanced the crazed, evil grin, and she shuddered at the image of malice and glee. Calmly, without care, he raised his hand to point at Kokoro. "It's all on my whim."_

_Pain exploded everywhere, and she screamed long and loud._

**. . . **. . . **. . .**

Kokoro came awake to a hand shaking her shoulder, and with a cry she moved to knock the limb away. It jerked back, then returned to clap itself over her mouth. "Be silent!" Vegeta's voice hissed, and she curled up instinctively and went still, waiting.

Vegeta backed off, and she stared up at him in the dim glow of the light they had left on in the washroom for her. "What was it this time?" he demanded, and she scowled.

"My own head telling me how weak I am, so don't you dare start," she snapped back, her tiredness loosening her guarded tongue.

"Annoying female. Don't put words in my mouth. You're not…completely weak," he muttered back, his voice probably not meant to be heard, and she eyed him warily. She wondered how much of that statement was just to get on her good side.

"I don't have the strength to even protect myself from a hamster, and I'm shattered," she admitted, feeling her tail wrap more closely about her in her anxiety. "And I can't even begin to heal until I'm free, I think. If I'll ever heal."

"None of us are exactly whole," he reminded her, though in his point of view he was probably just informing her of this fact. But she knew the darkness, knew that he had his own pain, and turned her head away from his gaze.

"I know," she said, and rolled away from him. She cringed at giving him her back, but neither was she going to face him right now, and appear to welcome comfort from him.

She heard him sigh and stiffened when she felt his weight push down the mattress. "I need you to trust me."

"I can't." She pulled the blanket tighter. "And I don't think I will be able to for some time, yet."

"Will your freedom help you?"

Kokoro considered that and peered up at him with a frown. "Maybe. Send me somewhere I can live—not just survive—and maybe I can remember what normality kind of feels like."

He didn't try to touch her, to her relief, and stood up. "We'll see what we can do. But I may not be able to offer much."

"I think that at this point I'll take what I can get."

Vegeta only nodded, then turned to go. "Get some sleep," he ordered. "You get your bread tomorrow."

Weary and seeing no point in defying that order, Kokoro closed her eyes. Even so, the wait for that sleep to return was agonizing, and as she lay in the darkness she knew she wouldn't be sleeping well.

**. . .** . . .** . . .**

Morning came with a bowl of mashed…something, which was probably supposed to resemble oatmeal or grits. It was bland on her tongue after the soup, but she swallowed without complaint, knowing she wasn't about to get anything better. This wasn't a pleasure cruise, and neither a slave nor a Saiyan would get any special treatment here.

That thought hit her hard when she got a chance to get a shower. Able to stand up on her own for longer periods now without getting wiped out, she had asked to be able to clean herself properly, to which Vegeta had grudgingly acquiesced. She was not to overwork herself, because the Saiyans knew she would never allow any of them in there with her when she was naked. But mulling over her fate under the hot cascade, she very suddenly found herself needing to sit down.

She slid down the shower stall's slick wall as her knees buckled, sucking in air greedily. The warm, moist air wasn't helping matters much, and with a trembling hand she managed to crack open the door a little to let in cool relief.

Kokoro's head bumped up against the wall with an exhausted relaxation of muscles. Her eyes were burning, thin trails leaking from the corners to be lost in the streams pouring down from her hair. It was still hard to breathe, but a moment's thought caused her to recognize that she was choking on her tears. She wasn't sure which emotion had led to this… Helplessness? Humiliation? Grief, terror, emptiness? That wide open sensation of feeling so utterly lost? She had always been a victim, weak, her captors' little toy. Never had she been outright called a slave. And now, here she was. Vegeta had claimed her as such, Frieza had named her so. She had no name in that creature's eyes, only the title of slave. Vegeta didn't even call her by name… What was she to him, then, a tool or one of his people? But even that didn't have much bearing on things, she knew, given his casual disregard of both Raditz and Nappa in the future for their weakness. But she feared death far less than whatever else he could do to her, she realized, regardless of his promises.

She almost wished she was back where she had been, in her own world. At least she knew those monsters, knew what they would do, knew that there was some possibility of standing against them. There wasn't even a way to kill herself here, the Saiyans kept so close an eye on her it was almost maddening. Though, here—she was alone now. It would be so easy find a way to drown herself with no one watching. But would even that last long, before they brought her back?

A pounding on the door answered that question for her. "Hurry up in there!" the surly prince demanded through the steel barricade. "Don't make me come in there and drag you back to your bed."

Kokoro cleared her throat to free it of any blockage. "Okay!" she called back, reaching for the edge of the stall door to pull it shut again. "I'll be done in a few minutes."

"You'd _better_," came the growled reply, and she shivered in foreboding at the promise in those words. He really would drag her out to make sure she was properly resting, if only because she was his property and she wasn't following orders. No, there would be no escaping these men, not unless—unless she could get home? Not home, she corrected, but Earth. Raditz would be going in search of his brother at some point; all she had to do was wait for him to remember his supposed Third Class sibling and tag along somehow.

And there was motivation, burning through her and startling her lungs with a gasp as she stood upright again. There was something to live for.

With renewed purpose, Kokoro shut off the water and opened the stall to grab a towel. She needed baby steps, she recognized. And first of them was to feed herself, and Vegeta had promised her bread. One step at a time, until she learned to fly.

Which, in this world, might actually be literal.

* * *

_**Updated 9-29-14**_


	4. Chapter 4: World of Conspiracy

As always, thank you for the watches and favorites, and thank you especially to **GVLuver**, **Hoyitos**, **Honeybunches123**, my anonymous **Guest**, and **Merifaye **for commenting. :-) **  
**

**Hoyitos**\- Thank you so much. Proper grammar and good writing are important to me as an aspiring author, and a story just can't hold my attention for very long if it doesn't have these, especially from those who are supposed to be native English speakers. As for where Kokoro comes from, she is from Earth, but something like our Earth, instead of theirs. She doesn't know how she got to that planet or became a Saiyan, and the Saiyans don't know she used to be human, and she's not about to tell them that. I'll try to go back in and clear that up if I can. Right now she wants to go to Goku's Earth, since she knows she probably can't get back to her own. And thank you for your input on Brief vs. Briefs. I'll be using "Brief" instead of the other one, as per your suggestion. :-)

**Merifaye**\- I might try to give you some fluff eventually, don't worry. It may take a long while, given Kokoro's mindset, but she'll get there someday. :-P I hope this is one of your good ones, and I assure you that I have no intention of leaving this thing incomplete. :-) And no need to apologize, I completely understand. :-)

Chapters 1-3 have been edited as of today, but since it's been so long since I updated I suspect you've all read those again anyway. There shouldn't be too many major changes, and I don't even really remember if there are any. I've been fiddling with them for the past few months while also trying to work on later chapters. After the next update there may be another break as I figure out if I want to keep some of my later rewrites or not (I added in at least five chapters) but I don't figure there will be too much of a delay once I'm sure of what I'm doing.

* * *

**Chapter Four: World of Conspiracy**

There was only so long, Kokoro realized in hindsight, that Frieza's merry band would deign to stay away from the filthy monkey pet, and this lasted until two days after she finally began to feed herself. She could only vaguely sense the ki around her, the ship like a mass of energy with that one fiery spot at its center, and had no way yet of figuring out how to sense individuals without training. So she didn't feel the approaching stranger, and being still confined to bed she could only cower back into its corner as the door came forcefully open.

Red skin and white hair greeted her, the member of the Ginyu Force that was given an Australian accent in the English dub of Dragon Ball Z. "I wondered where the apes were hidin' ya," he leered, leaning against the open doorway. "Name's Jeice. Ya want me to show ya a good time? I'd do so much better than any of these sweaty monkeys are capable of."

Kokoro stared in shock and pulled her knees up to her chest with an unconscious whimper. Jeice grinned at her, opened his mouth, and then let out a yelp as he was slammed to the ground.

Vegeta was radiating fury, and it looked like he had even charged up as he stood between her and the intruding male. "What," he growled, "are you doing here, Jeice?"

Jeice returned to his feet and spat at the Saiyan. "Just checking out yer new toy. Looks like you're just wasting the gift Frieza gave you, though. Maybe I should take her off your hands."

"Fool," the Saiyan sneered. "I'd hardly be a grateful recipient if I destroyed my toy the first time I played with it. She was far too weak when we brought her here, and I prefer not to take my pleasure from a cooling corpse. That may be what you're into, but I certainly am not."

Jeice's smile was full of sharp teeth. "Really, now. She looks quite comfortable, there. Didn't think you'd even be interested in touching her."

Suddenly there was scorching body heat from behind her, and muscular arms pulled her into a firm chest. Kokoro gasped, eyes glazing over, and fought her first instinct which was to fight against the way too intimate embrace. _He's proving a point,_ she told herself, having to remind herself like a broken record of Vegeta's promise.

But she could hardly breathe, especially when warm lips touched the side of her neck and lingered much longer than she thought was necessary. Then they moved, hot breath fanning across her skin as he spoke. "Oh, quite interested. I agree, my plaything is quite comfortable, and I think I am even in the mood now to take my liberties with her. You can stay, if you'd like. I always wondered if you were a voyeur, and you seem quite interested in seeing her broken."

Kokoro squeaked and took a hissing breath as a palm slid into place over her mouth and he settled even closer against her and her neck. Jeice spat out a disgusted denial and stormed out, and as soon the door slid closed Vegeta released her with a suddenness that sent her reeling.

She breathed in and out as if she had been starved for air, and turned wide eyes on the Saiyan prince. Her stomach was in knots, and she wasn't sure if nerves or fear sent her shaking, suddenly cold. He looked back at her with a frozen grimace, and she sucked in a lungful of air. "You—"

Raditz and Nappa burst in, letting the door close before they started talking. "What was that swine doing here?" Nappa snarled, and Raditz looked to Kokoro with a frown.

"Did he touch you?"

"No," she denied, eyes still fixed on Vegeta in her shock. Her mind was still quite numb. "He—_He_ did, but he chased him away with it. Vegeta—Sir—you—"

Vegeta shut her up with a look and turned to his men. "We need to select a planet, _now_. Jeice isn't going to give up, and Frieza will probably take any form of discipline out on the woman. She needs to be gone before the end of the week."

Raditz pulled out a pad from his armor and looked to be scrolling through its contents. "I've got a list compiled, I was going to work on narrowing it down tonight. You, Nappa?"

"Same," he answered, still looking quite irate.

Vegeta stormed away towards the washroom. "Start working on it now. Woman, sleep."

"I—"

His look demanded no arguments, and she held back another whimper. "_Sleep_," he growled, and she curled up under her blanket with her back to the wall.

**. . .** . . . **. . .**

"How about Sola?"

"No, too dry, not enough water. She'd burn to a crisp before the second day."

"Fine, fine. What's next on the list?"

Nappa consulted his pad. "Foresa."

"No, I remember that one, and it gets too many earthquakes. Rockslide could kill her if she's not careful."

"She needs to build awareness, anyway, but the volcanos were worrying."

"Oh, yeah, those. Jaro?"

"Volcanos again."

Kokoro let her mind drift as the towering Saiyans worked through the planets on their lists, inevitably finding something wrong that could kill her before the day was out. She sighed, thinking the process had dragged on an awfully long time, and wondered if she should just randomly point to a name. Vegeta would not be happy if this went on for much longer.

"Earo."

"Absolutely not," Raditz immediately shot down. "That one hasn't even been purged, it was passed over last month because the soil is too acidic for what the client wanted." There was a pause, during which Nappa must have noticed something in his expression.

"What, what is it?"

"Maybe something." Raditz's voice was much quieter now, distant. "Did you know that I had a younger brother?"

From where he sat on the other side of the room, Vegeta answered. "Third Class, wasn't he?"

"Yes. He was sent on a purging mission as an infant, to a planet in the Northern Quadrant."

"Your point?"

"We never followed up on it. Vegeta-sei was destroyed around the same time, so I never found out the outcome of his mission."

Nappa slapped his pad down. "So there might be another Saiyan out there, alive? Why'd you never mention this before?"

"I was young! I never thought of Kakarot after that, figured if he was just a Third Class and didn't even survive his mission then he wasn't worth my time. But hearing that name, Earo. It reminded me."

Kokoro listened as Vegeta stood up and walked closer. "What was the planet's name?"

"Earth."

"Then I'll go there."

The Saiyans turned as one to look at the female poking her head out of the blankets. She still held them to herself in a defensive gesture, but she figured she needed to look in their eyes for this next part of the conversation.

Vegeta scowled at her. "Why Earth?"

"You're going to go there anyway, right?" She nodded when he looked to be conceding the point, then shrugged. This was her chance, the closest thing to home she could get to now, and she needed this to work. This was her only option to escape. "I need to be gone from here, soon. You need his brother. Say I died, that you disposed of me, but send me with Raditz instead when he goes to this 'Earth.' If he survived all these years, then I can, too, until Frieza's dead. If he didn't make it, and the planet is junk, then send me somewhere else on the way back."

Nappa and Raditz looked to their prince for the final decision, and Vegeta looked like he was seriously considering it. "The idea has merit." Another pause, and he nodded. "Very well. That's the plan, then. Raditz, get ready, you're leaving in two days."

Raditz nodded. "All right. But why not tonight?"

"I told Jeice I wouldn't be a grateful recipient if I killed her my first go," Vegeta answered bluntly, and she shivered at the reminder. "That being said, I think they won't be expecting us to make a week without crushing her. Two days will do it, but we won't be leaving her alone for a moment."

Kokoro rolled back over and pulled the blanket up again. So it was done; she was going to Earth, and Raditz was doomed to die within a year. It needed to happen—Raditz was not a nice man, despite his regard for her. He was bloodthirsty, cruel: a Saiyan. Letting him live might change things to the point Goku never became stronger, and she knew much was in store for him. She didn't know whether it was Goku or Vegeta who faced Frieza in the end, but this way at least she knew a bit of what was to come. She would hide—yes, that was good. She'd hide until they all left for Namek, and then she would go to Roshi and then Kami for training.

Oh, boy, Roshi… She would definitely need that year of adjusting to freedom to prepare for that perverted old man. Perhaps she should invest in a disguise of some form, when it came time for it.

"Sit up," Vegeta barked from behind her, and she jolted into an upright position with her arms held in a guard stance that protected her face and vital organs, half-remembered self-defense classes coming back to her. Ignoring her reaction, he crossed his arms and stood his ground. "Hold out your hands, palms up and together."

Kokoro steadied her breathing then slowly did as instructed. She cupped them before her, figuring that she would get an explanation before too long. When he next ordered her to close her eyes, she understood. This was ki training, most likely so that she wouldn't end up dead when they dropped her off on what they figured would be an uninhabited planet.

She took a deep breath and relaxed, allowing Vegeta to walk her through the steps with short, probably slightly annoyed directions. Clear your mind, reach deep. How? Just do it, feel for the power that's there. Good girl, now grab on to it. Bring it into your hands, imagine it pooling like water in your palms. Hold it there, gather it, don't let it escape. She did what she could to do as she was told, feeling some frustration of her own at not getting much clarification. But she could feel that energy inside of her, the same that swirled around her even in her sleep, and felt like she was training herself to use a limb she never had before—which in hindsight wasn't the greatest example, as most things with her tail were instinctual. She spent her time alone in the washroom learning how to pick things up with it, but for the most part it was like she had been born with the thing. But ki—it was more like trying to draw an elephant without ever having seen a picture of one before, and only minimal descriptions of it.

Finally she felt a warmth in her palms and repeated whatever she had just done, then focussed on the warmth and did her best to condense it. When Vegeta made a noise that sounded half satisfied, she peeked and then gasped at the yellow globe that hovered above her palms. "Wow," she whispered, finding it more beautiful than stylized animation could convey, and ignored the derisive snort that came from beside her. This was more like the Vegeta she was familiar with anyway, not the one who offered her reassurances in her fear or the one who held her with a heated caress as Jeice stood watching. But then, she remembered, she didn't really know him. She wasn't even sure she ever would, especially if her plan to get away on Earth worked.

"It's a start," Vegeta allowed, and after this followed a crash course in the theory of how to fly, how to start a fire with her ki, how to use this energy destructively. When her brain was numb and her eyes started drooping, he finally let her be and she fell to sleep immediately.

She dreamed of her hands killing Raditz, but in the morning she gave him her same fake smile and no one was ever the wiser.

* * *

_**Uploaded**** 9/29/14**_


	5. Chapter 5: World of Freedom

Again, thanks for the favorites and watches. And thank you for your comments, **Merifaye** and **NatNicole**. :-) I know it's not been that long since I last updated, but I decided to go ahead and give you this chapter anyway. It should answer your question well enough, **Merifaye**. And, **NatNicole**, I had planned on something of the sort. Obviously not Trunks himself, of course, as it will be Kokoro's child and not Bulma's. The child will have a different personality, too, as is necessary. :-P There may be a Trunks as well at some point, but I don't know if Bulma will stay with Yamcha or find someone else, yet. That would require another OC, if even a minor one.

* * *

**Chapter Five: World of Freedom**

Nappa dumped a pile of clothes on her lap and Kokoro picked up the stiff fabric with a dubious look. "What's this?" she asked, and then smiled when she recognized her clothes—her own clothes, the ones she had been wearing when she broke out of her prison. They didn't quite fit, as they had actually been her brother's, but she was attached to them and they were hers. And they were _clean_, and they hadn't been clean since—Before.

Vegeta grunted. "You should be wearing armor instead of those. They ill suit you."

"If a set of female armor went missing, I'm sure questions would start to be asked. And there's no hiding my tail with those things, they show off way too much." Kokoro set her khakis back on her lap and smiled at Nappa. "Thank you for these. They are…important to me. I think I'll feel more like myself again once I'm in them."

Nappa shook his head. "They are a strange material and cut, and hang like a sack on you, but we figured you'd want them back regardless of what you wear. But you're getting shoes, and no arguments there."

"Fine, but I've got small feet, so good luck trying to find some that fit me." She swung her feet down over the edge and Nappa reached out to steady her, but she slapped his hand away. "I can't be an invalid anymore and it's driving me nuts to stay in this bed for so long. I'll walk better if I practice, and that's not going to happen if you all keep babying me!"

The Elite backed away, and she tried not to remember how Vegeta killed him in the battle against Goku. But no, that had to happen, too, because Nappa was out of control and—but didn't that apply to Vegeta, too? She shouldn't mess with time, that was all she knew, and hiding would help ensure that events kept to their original path.

"Sorry," she sighed, figuring she should at least leave on good terms with the guy if this was the last she would ever see of him. "I'm just restless, and sick of sitting still. I'm going to get changed, and I guess you can walk me across the room if you really want to."

Nappa waved her onwards. "You're hardly going to have us waiting on you hand and foot when you arrive on Earth. Raditz will be back soon with the shoes and your last meal, so don't take too long."

Kokoro made her way on wobbly feet and took great pleasure in shedding the borrowed shirt and shorts once she had locked the door behind her. Her body was still mottled with purple bruises, but the smallest ones were fading now and were not quite so tender anymore, and her scratches had long since scabbed over and were beginning to mend. She figured she must be quite a sight to the males, but was just happy that her new Saiyan body, though retaining her old wounds, was healing better and more quickly than her human one had. The physical evidence of her captivity was fading away, and then it would just be the psychological scars to heal and hide.

She lifted the khakis around her waist and cinched the belt tight just below the base of her tail. A worn tank top, dark blue and full of holes, went on next, and then she wrapped her tail around her and pulled on the oversized grey hoodie. Its warmth surrounded her, and she blinked back tears to remember how her brother used to pull it down over her head when she forgot a jacket. _"Silly Koko," _he had teased, _"I might as well just give you this thing."_ And then he had died. He had died, and it had been her fault, and now she kept the sweatshirt and cried for him.

The door from the hall to the Saiyans' quarters opened, and she wiped away the salty water on her cheeks and all evidence of her disquieted state. It was just as well she was here now, she supposed. There was nothing for her to go back to, not anymore. At least on this Earth she could start again, learn to fight. As a Saiyan she had a lot of potential, and it would be a shame to waste it and stay so weak. Control, she decided, was exactly what she needed for herself.

There was a knock on the washroom door. "Food is here, kid," Nappa called out, and she gathered up the shirt and shorts to return to Vegeta. Nappa dropped a pair of shoes on her head as soon as she emerged, and she scowled at his amused grin as she rubbed the new sore spot.

"You think you're so hilarious," she deadpanned, but this only made him laugh.

"Of course I do. Now eat, before Vegeta gets grumpy."

"Nappa," the Prince growled, and for once Kokoro did not cringe but instead rolled her eyes at the bald behemoth.

"I think he already is," she whispered to him, and that made him cackle all the more loudly.

**. . .** . . . **. . .**

"You had better not drop me or poke me," Kokoro warned Raditz as she held up the sack they wanted her to climb into. It was thick and black, and reminded her of a body bag except it was open at the top, and would need to be tied shut. She balked at that thought, but if it would get her to Earth then she knew she just needed to bear with it.

Raditz just rolled his eyes and continued his tinkering with the scouter. Vegeta stood close by, and she wasn't sure if he was impatient or just plain unhappy. "Stay close to him," he ordered her, a fire in his eyes. "You are not to wander off until the planet is deemed suitable, understood? And if he leaves you in the pod, stay there and do not leave it. I will not have you killing yourself because you cannot follow orders."

Of course she planned on doing exactly the opposite, sneaking off while Raditz was off hunting his brother, but she nodded to appease the increasingly irritable Prince. "Of course, wouldn't dream of it," she lied. "It would be stupid of me to take such a risk."

"See to it you remember that," he growled, and she took an unconscious step backwards. Okay, so Vegeta was still scary, had to remember that. She would be staying well away from his fight with Goku in a couple years, and was fairly confident she could avoid him since he wouldn't start learning how to sense ki until Namek. But there was time yet until then, and for the moment she needed to act the subservient Saiyan.

Raditz put down the screwdriver and placed the scouter over his eye. "All right, I'm ready. Time to get in the bag."

With a sigh, Kokoro placed one foot into the bag and then the other. Her khakis were tucked over her new boots, stark white with black trim that stood out easily from the rest of her outfit. Normally she would have tucked her pants into them, but her fashion sense rebelled and she decided she would just have to wear them with whatever training keikogi she eventually got herself, and sneakers for the normal days. But in a bag it wouldn't matter, she reminded herself, and hugged herself in an attempt at self-comfort as Nappa raised the stiff fabric up to her neck.

Vegeta stopped him before her head was covered. "We'll come get you when Frieza is dead, which may not be for some time yet. Until then, remember what I've told you and train hard. And don't you _dare_ get yourself killed."

It finally occurred to her that she was leaving, and she was the only female Saiyan in existence, and he wouldn't dare hurt her seriously, so she could be as cheeky as she wanted. So she grinned toothily and pointedly ignored his resulting frown. "Of course, your majesty," she chirped, loading on the sugar in her voice. He snarled at her, but for now she wasn't worried. Perhaps another day, when they weren't pressed for time, she'd be wary of what he'd do in retaliation, but for now she had time enough to for him to possibly forget about his annoyance over this. She was grateful to him for saving her and keeping her safe, yes, but she had been cooped up and bored for the past week, and she wanted to have a little fun for the first time in…she couldn't remember how long. Her smile died at that thought, and she looked away from the fuming Prince. "It'll be nice to be out of a cage," she murmured, and felt the anger in the air instantly dissipate.

Vegeta sighed. "You're going to be alone for a long time."

She wouldn't, necessarily, but he didn't need to know that yet. "At least I'll be able to eat when I want, and will be able to sleep knowing I'm safely away from…them, and him."

"Hnn. Just don't die."

"Okay," she agreed quietly, and allowed Nappa to close the sack.

He tied it off above her head and put his hands on her shoulders to keep her steady. She twitched at the touch, but allowed it knowing that she had no choice in this right now. "You okay in there?" he asked, and she nodded to give her answer.

"Goodbye, Nappa," she whispered, "and thanks for putting up with me."

"Feh, you're easier to put up with than the clown you're riding with, and a lot better company. Raditz, you know what to do."

There was a prick of pain on her arm, and everything went woozy. _Well,_ she thought, _I guess here is where the drugs come in._

**. . .** . . . **. . .**

Kokoro woke up with dark cloth still covering her face and a warm body pressed against her. The space seemed close, and her surroundings rattled softly at an increasing rate.

"We're still in the pod, just now approaching Earth's atmosphere," Raditz told her, his voice coming from somewhere above her head. She was sitting sideways on his lap, one arm bracing her against his side as his other kept her legs immobilized. "Don't try to move, we don't have that much room in here. These aren't meant for two people, you know."

She clutched at her arms in an effort to distract herself from her restlessness and discomfort. "We've been in hibernation for, what, a year? My muscles are stiff, and I can't wait to get out of this thing."

"We're almost there, keep your hat on. Ah-ha, feel that? We've entered the upper atmosphere. It should just be a matter of minutes before we land somewhere."

"What does it all look like?"

"Green and brown and white, and lots of ocean as well. If everything isn't toxic, you should be able to live quite comfortably here. Wait…"

She realized he had spotted the cities, and winced, grateful now for the bag which hid her expression. "What's wrong?"

"There is civilization here, and it doesn't look like the population has been wiped out. Has Kakarot failed?"

Kokoro remained silent, knowing this was only the beginning. He would die today, and awaken a horrible knowledge inside of the Earth's hero. Today was when Earth's five years of peace came to an end. Now was not the time for sarcastic comments, or any attempt at humor. Raditz was angry, dangerous, and doomed, and she was torn over what to think of his coming fate.

She screeched when they slammed into the hillside, no view of the outside world leaving the event very unexpected. Raditz's arms tightened around her, keeping her from jostling around, then he started pressing buttons in the pod as it settled and cooled. "You will stay in here until I get back," he ordered. "I will be having words with my brother, if he still lives. We will discuss later with Vegeta whether you will stay or if I will bring you to another world. And if you do stay, the debate will be whether you are to hide among the people or if you should take over where Kakarot abandoned us."

The young woman was very much a fan of hiding among the people, but decided not to tell him that. She couldn't be here when he got back with Gohan, she knew, and some part of her felt guilt at leaving him to die. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"For what?"

"It's… Never mind. Go find your brother and deal with him. I'll be fine."

"All right, then." The pod door came open and let in a rush of fresh air. She was shifted to the side as he stood up, and found herself sitting in the pod's seat when he left. The door sealed closed again, and Kokoro pushed at the top of the bag.

It was no use, she quickly discovered. Nappa had tied it too well, and the rope wasn't budging. "He could have at least untied me," she grumbled to herself, beginning to feel the close confines that held her prisoner. She breathed deep, and the calming action reminded her of one other option.

Kokoro brought forth her ki and wondered how she should use it. A fire, a blast? The latter would be weak enough that she didn't damage the pod, she figured, and would be more feasible than trying for a sustained beam.

So she built up the ki in her hands and did her best to follow the steps Vegeta had walked her through. She was drawing an elephant again, this time with more descriptions, but still she had not seen one and had no idea what this was supposed to feel like. It took five failed attempts, and finally the energy escaped her hands with a suddenness that made her yelp.

Smoldering fabric filled her nose and the smoke choked her lungs, but she slapped at a couple buttons and found the one which opened the hatch when she could extricate herself from the bag through the hole she had burned. Just in case, she pushed the other one again to turn whatever it was back off, then pulled herself forward through the door.

She stumbled up the crater wall, sucking in the clean, cool air, and only paused once to be sure the door had closed behind her. A warm haze captured her mind, and a bounce entered her step as she climbed upwards. She was free. She was _free_, and that thought drove her up and onwards with a giddy laugh.

Up top, she discovered the farmer Raditz had hit with the bullet, and checked immediately to see if he was still alive. His pulse beat strongly, and he would undoubtably wake up with an excruciating headache, but he lived and breathed yet. It would not be wise for him to still be here when the Saiyan male returned, although she remembered that the truck had been Gohan's shelter for a few minutes. It was broken down anyway, so she wouldn't be able to drive it.

The farmer groaned as she heaved one of his arms over her shoulder. She judged by the truck's orientation and started in the direction it had come from, figuring that would be where the man lived. He raised his head and looked blearily at her after a few minutes, and she gave him the best smile she could muster. "You okay, mister?" she asked him, and he gave off a sound full of pain.

"Mah head's killin' me, and I think I must be hallucinating. Did ya see a steel pod back there in the ground?"

"Yes," she answered. "What happened to you?"

"An alien! He flew! He came floating out of the hole and said something about a Kakarot, and then hit mah gun with mah own bullet!" He gesticulated wildly with his free hand, and Kokoro nodded.

"That sounds terrifying," she assured him, widening her eyes appropriately. "Are we far from your home?"

"Nah, and I think I can make it on my own if you need to get home. But wait! Where did you come from?"

"I was passing through when I saw the crash, and then saw you when I investigated," Kokoro lied. "I was on my way back to where I parked my car by the road when it happened."

The farmer freed himself from her grasp and took a few wobbling steps by himself. "You had best get going before this nutcase returns, then. I can make it on my own from here."

"Well, if you're sure…" Kokoro stepped away slowly, allowing for him to change his mind if he wanted. He waved her onward though, and headed off, so she smiled at his departing back. Looking up at the sky, she breathed in deep and started walking toward the sun.

**. . . **. . .** . . .**

She was gone, a burnt hole in her bag and a trail of footprints up the crater. _Sorry,_ she had said, and Raditz grumbled to himself as he realized she had been planning this all along. She never intended to stick around, and scurried off as soon as she knew he wouldn't be able to stop her.

And then Kakarot and the green man arrived, and in the wake of the ensuing battle Raditz stared up at the sunny blue sky and wondered if _this_ was what she was apologizing for, if she knew this was coming. That was preposterous, but the look in her eyes when she proposed going to Earth…

"We can't all have the last laugh," he taunted the Namekian, laughing himself at the thought of what his comrades would do to these pathetic beings. They would come for the Dragon Balls and for Kokoro, and nothing would be able to stop them.

The Namekian cried out in fury and dealt him the finishing blow. When he opened his eyes, it was to a long line of souls and the afterlife.

**. . . **. . .** . . .**

"So the kid disappeared," Nappa stated, following after his prince as they headed back to the pods. "Think she'll be okay among the Earthlings?"

Vegeta scowled. "If that dunce Kakarot could survive, then so can she. It is just as well she left when she did, I suppose. She's useless as a warrior and even as a Saiyan. We'll find her, though, even if we have to tear the planet apart in our search for her and those Dragon Balls. And then we'll leave her there after killing the population, if we leave enough of the planet intact, that is."

Nappa grinned. "Sounds good to me. So what are we going to do about these friends of Kakarot's?"

The Prince looked at him as if it were obvious. (*)"Once we force Kakarot's friends to tell us how to find the Dragon Balls, we'll eliminate them, along with anyone else who tries to stand in our way."

"And then we can wish Raditz back to life."

"No, that would be a wasted wish." He scoffed. "Raditz was a weakling and a fool. Any Saiyan who can be defeated so easily doesn't deserve to live."

"Hnn."

Vegeta smirked. "Actually, Nappa, I have something far more grand in mind. Now, tell me, how does the idea of eternal life sound to you?"

**. . .** . . .** . . .**

As she walked on through farm after farm, Kokoro breathed deep of the fresh air and marveled at the open fields and towering mountains. For too long she had been kept confined, and the chance to be outside was nearly overwhelming. She wouldn't live in a city, she decided immediately, figuring she should find a small town and settle there for a bit while she got her bearings. And then, when she learned how to survive on her own, she would live in the woods and experience life as she had been denied.

She knew, of course, that she would have problems without proper identification, but figured there would be some contingencies for that in place. Goku managed well enough, right? She could do this, had lived through worse. She was twenty now, near as she could figure with the time spent in her cell and in the space pod. She was twenty years old, and she was finally free.

* * *

_**Uploaded 9/3/14**_

*Disclaimer: Dialogue starting here between Vegeta and Nappa was taken from the English dub of the anime, Season 1 Episode 5. (I have to specify English dub, because the subbed Japanese dialogue is very, very different, at least on Hulu.)


	6. Chapter 6: Buryu Yokai

Thank you, **leebee14**. I have every intention of doing so. :-) And thanks, **Merifaye**. :-) Yeah, I figured a singular chapter for a prologue would be too short or too long, or limit me too much, so I decided having it all as a story arc kind of thing would work better for my purposes. That way I could introduce Kokoro and make it a little easier mentally to jump the gap of four years to this point, starting just a little over a year before the May 12 attack. This kind of ignores the canon schedule of tournaments, so apologies for that.

As a personal disclaimer, I will not be putting headers over the scenes for whose point of view it is in. I believe you all are intelligent enough to figure that out without my having to tell you, and if you can't figure it out just from my writing then one or both of us is obviously doing something wrong. :-P

And, yeah, I know I said there was probably going to be a bit of a delay for this one, but I changed my mind since I got past a block I was having trouble with in one of the future chapters. So, have an update. :-P

Originally this was not in the story, there was just going to be one or two post-tournament scenes. But I figured I out to show what happened instead of just making a passing mention, so three chapters got added in and I'm rewriting a fourth. We'll see what happens from there in terms of rewriting and restructuring.

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Part Two:

Demon in Disguise

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* * *

**Chapter Six: Buryu Yokai**

**December, Age 265**

**Time until Android Attack: 17 months**

"_Aaaaand, good morning, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Quarter-Finals of the Twenty-Fifth World Martial Arts Tournament! You've waited through the preliminaries to hear who our final eight contestants are, and now your patience has finally paid off! Unfortunately, our previous champion, Mr. Satan, has been struck ill this year, so he will not be competing. But facing each other in the first match, we have Shio Jacks of the Turnip Heights, and the Great Hiro Dor of the old Crane School! And in our second match, Drio Cans of Spinachville will fight Tens Bull of the South Desert. Then in our third match, Danu Harps of Song Mountain will fight Carpa Tunn of Cliff Isle. Aaand, in our fourth round, we have Salmon Steers of the West Woods up against the fierce Buryu Yokai of the East Woods, a student of the Turtle School! Yes, that's right, folks, an old rivalry between Turtle and Crane renewed! If previous tournaments are anything to go by, we can expect great things from that one, especially if these two schools are matched up against each other once more!"_

"Wow! Hey, Master Roshi, is that true?" Goku was shifting back and forth in his chosen vantage point at the rail overlooking the battle platform, restless and eager to see the coming fights. None of the Z-Fighters had entered this time around, focusing instead on preparing for the coming battles with the androids which were only a year and a half away, but when both Roshi and Piccolo had expressed interest in watching the matches, the others were instantly curious and automatically tagged along. Well, except for Vegeta, who was only halfheartedly attending since Bulma had somehow convinced the irritable Saiyan that it would be more interesting than sitting around while Dr. Brief fixed the Gravity Room again. He stood at the edge of the group, leaning against the back wall rather than the railing at the moment, looking bored out of his mind and annoyed at having to be in the presence of the close-knit group. Piccolo stood nearby, a tolerable buffer, it seemed, between him and the more grating and talkative members of the Z-Fighters and friends. In front of Piccolo, Gohan leaned up against the rail, tugging at the collar of the jacket Chi-Chi had insisted he wear, and Goku stood immediately to his left. The rest of the group had lined up at the rail beyond him, having opted to stand with their friends rather than sit in the stands. It made some sense, as the vantage point the fighters chose allowed more private and strange-sounding conversations to take place than they would be comfortable with among the ordinary citizens.

Roshi turned to look at his old student, feeling a deep sense of pride in having been the first one to give the growing man a formal training in martial arts after his late student's death. He had come so far in the years since then, and the old man hoped that his most recent student could impress even the most skeptical of the group (read: Vegeta). "Of course it is!" he answered. "That's right, you never met Buryu. You were still dead when I began her training."

"Huh-whaaa?" Goku stared at him in surprise, and Krillin turned away from the platform where the fights would take place soon.

"Her? And how come I never met her?" he complained, looking a bit put out. "I would have thought I would have seen this 'Buryu.'"

"Ehh, she came to me when you were with Kami," Roshi explained. "And she wanted to wait on introducing herself, so when you all returned from Namek I finished her training on the Mainland."

"Oh, so _that's_ where you went every day. I didn't think you had a hot date…"

"He only wishes," a woman's voice answered before Roshi could, full of teasing and amusement. As one, the group turned to see the strange newcomer, who had approached from their left. She looked the same as Roshi had last seen her: short and small, with the dark blue keikogi that bore his symbol on the left breast. Over that she wore a wide white belt that tied in the front, and a long white coat which hung thick and heavy to her calves. It had no symbol or decoration, no seams to be seen, and though it moved in the breeze it appeared sluggish and resistant. Her feet were shod in white boots with black soles and trim at the ankles, but her hands were bare and free of the weighted wristbands Roshi's male students liked to use. Of her face, only her eyes could be seen, light brown orbs alert and almost wary. A long white scarf concealed the rest, wrapped around and around to hide both face and hair, and the loose end of it trailed down over her right shoulder so she could easily tighten or loosen the garment. But despite the mask, the grin that appeared on her lips could be seen in the crinkle and sparkle of her eyes, and Roshi pouted at the old joke.

"Buryu," he whined, prompting a roll of the eyes from the female fighter, "why must you be so mean?"

"Because you are an old lech, regardless of how you treat me, and have little respect for women." A hand blurred, and when they blinked there was a finger jabbed into the nose of the pig who had been inching closer as soon as her presence had been revealed. "You touch, you die, Oolong."

"Aw, foiled," the pig groaned. "Eh, can't blame a guy for trying, right?"

Roshi shuddered at the disgusted look she shot the shapeshifter, glad it wasn't aimed at him. "I _always_ blame a guy for trying," she stated coldly, voice full of promise and then she looked away and seemed to dismiss the matter entirely. "So you all came to watch, huh? Too bad you didn't enter, I could have been having _fun_. But nooo, instead I have to go up against…._children_," she spat, shoulders slumped, and she shoved her hands into the pockets in her shitabaki. "Roshi, you _owe_ me for this."

"You can use the prize money. And, hey, can't have you breaking tradition," he argued, grinning. "All my students have participated."

"Yeah," Goku agreed. "Though, it's too bad we didn't know there'd be some good competition, if you're any decent. I might have considered joining if Master Roshi had said there would be someone actually able to fight this year. Didn't think it'd be any fun if I joined, since I didn't figure Vegeta here would be joining, and we've been…busy."

The masked woman turned wide eyes on the chipper man. Roshi figured if he was in her place, knowing what she did, he'd be reacting the same way. "On second thought," she answered shakily, "I think I'd be just as inclined to have _not_ participated, if I heard you were joining. You all would just be toying with me."

Yamcha, from where he stood next to Bulma, flexed an arm. "Yeah, we've been busy training hard."

Buryu fixed him with a flat, evaluating stare, and Roshi hid a snicker. "Okay, maybe not you," she said, sounding thoughtful. "You'd do better than what's here, but even with your power level hidden like that you don't— Never mind. But the non-human members of your group here would wipe the floor with me. Not sure about you two bald ones, though. Ummm… Krillin and…Tien, right?"

"That's us," Krillin confirmed. "Is it really that bad this year?"

"Consider the opponents you've faced and then how you would fare now against them if they stayed exactly the same."

"Point taken. Man, not envying you that boredom."

She nodded and sighed. "I can't decide whether to play with them or just put them out of their misery quickly so I don't get their hopes up." The woman paused, then looked positively malicious. "Well, except for Dor. _Him_ I don't mind humiliating a bit. Seriously, 'the Great'? And Shen's been slipping, and I never liked the guy anyway. He's a slime ball."

Piccolo snorted. "Consider it an exercise in restraint, then. Investigate how light a blow it takes to knock them down or out."

"Perfect. Great idea, thanks, Big Green."

"_Really_ don't mention it." A pause. "Little Blue."

"Oh, that's new." Buryu grinned at him, and the ease of this rapport drew out Gohan's curiosity.

"You know Miss Buryu, Piccolo?" he asked.

"We've met. Twice. However, Kami knows her quite well."

"Don't sound so sour about it. You're just jealous I didn't go to _you_ for training instead."

"Wow, you went to Kami for training, too? When was this?" Goku asked excitedly. "Did you use the Pendulum Room?"

Buryu backed up a step at his enthusiasm, shoulders stiffening. "Uhh… Yes? April, that's when I went to him. It was before you got back from space. And yes, we used that."

At the far end of the group, Vegeta snorted and walked to the rail. "It looks like we will be seeing how this training of yours has paid off, woman. Don't you have somewhere to be?"

Roshi waved his hand at her, sensing his female student's increasing anxiety. "Go on, you'll want to be on hand for when the fights start. You're last in the first round, but they'll want you in the Waiting Room."

Buryu gave a short little bow to him, not much more than a twitch of the neck and waist, and her coat fanned out behind her as she spun about to go to the stairs. "See you all later, then. I hope this doesn't bore you all too much."

When she was gone, Bulma turned to Roshi with a look of wonder on her face. "You didn't say anything perverted, I'm impressed."

"Are you kidding?" Roshi shuddered and knew his face was a bit blue and damp with cold sweat. "If you think Chi-Chi's scary when she's mad, you've not seen anything yet. Buryu gets mighty vicious when something like that comes up. She almost turned Oolong inside out once." And then he smiled, leaning against the rail as the announcer approached the center of the platform. "Besides, that girl's like a daughter to me. But hey, if you're offering…"

As predicted, Bulma slammed her fist down onto the top of his head, and as he groaned in pain he wondered why he ever even bothered.

**. . . **. . . **. . .**

Fixing her white scarf more securely around her head, the disguised Saiyan female leaned against the wall and sighed, silently cursing herself for the way she had flinched back automatically up in the balcony. Goku was harmless, she knew that, if a little overbearing in his excitement. And Vegeta—half a decade for her and she still had not grown accustomed to the thought of him. His ki burned in her senses, a dark flame kept under quiet, dangerous, control. He had gotten so strong… Even having spent two one-and-a-half-day sessions in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, she knew she had no hope of ever matching him in power. Her best defense would have to be this scarf and her new name, then, as well as the scent neutralizers she wore. With the Saiyan nose as good as it was, she didn't doubt her natural scent would tip him off, if it worked like fingerprints. She didn't have to worry about ki, she kept hers well under wraps and he hadn't known how to sense ki when she was with him.

Groaning, Kokoro let her head drop back. Knowing her luck, she'd be around him a lot, especially if she was going to follow through with her plan of asking the blue-haired inventor for help. Goku had been training with a gravity generator while traveling to Namek, maybe Bulma could help her do the same if she asked nicely?

A whisper of movement, and she flicked her eyes to watch how Dor was slinking up to her. As far from Tien in personality as possible—but also on the opposite side of goody-two-shoes, of course—Dor was a close emulation of his master, her teacher's old rival. She would have guessed that Shen would have been out of the game by now, but perhaps the muttered rumors in the towns of Roshi having taken a new student had prompted the old slime ball to do the same. Whatever the case, Dor was a pompous fool, and she was looking forward to bringing him down to size.

Dor leaned against the wall next to her with his shoulder, leering down at her. He was around six feet to her five-one, broad shoulders to her small frame, but though he towered his aura screamed "overcompensating wimp," and she felt anything but tiny next to him. He was fairly unimpressive, and she wondered idly if poking him with needles would cause his muscles to leak hot air. Maybe she should try that, if she had time to go back to Piccolo and ask him to materialize some for her. But no, she was just as likely to kill him with those, she decided, and dismissed the notion from her mind.

"You might as well bow out now, little girl," Dor laughed at her. "Run back home to Mommy and Daddy and let us men do the fighting."

Refusing to rise to the bait, Kokoro simply smiled. "I made it this far, haven't I? I think you'll find I'm more to handle than you thought, Bore."

He snarled at her. "It's Dor, or can't you hear right?"

"Oh, I know. But you're a bore, so I thought I'd call you Bore." Her eyes taunted him, and dared him to retaliate. When he raised a fist, she wagged a finger in his face. "Nah-ah-ah. We'll be facing each other in the end, unless you lose in this or the next round. You can try teaching me a lesson then, if you want, but for now I'd like you to leave me in peace, all right?"

"You— You— Grha!" He spat at the ground, and she turned her nose up at the spittle that almost touched her boots. "I'm going to enjoy beating the daylights out of you, you b##."

She shook her head. "You won't even be able to touch me. Now be a good boy and go to your fight, it's starting now. Yes, now, bye-bye."

He looked like he wanted to shriek at her, and stomped off in a rage. That would probably affect his chances a little, she decided, unless he got a level head within the next couple of minutes. Anger made for sloppiness, most often, which was why smart fighters tried to make their opponents mad. Or, she reflected, it could also make someone more dangerous, as she knew Vegeta had proved against Goku in their battle. Then again, he really had been that powerful…

Kokoro moved to the door that led out to the platform, standing just inside so that only those looking for her could see her. Roshi's group stood straight across the arena, and she knew Gohan had spotted her when he suddenly started jumping up and down and waving. Startled into a laugh, Kokoro waved back, a brief movement of her hand before she shoved both back into her pockets. She had the abrupt thought that she wanted to impress them, _all _of them, but with further consideration she knew there wasn't much chance of that happening here. She didn't have any decent opponents, she wouldn't even need to power up for any of them. She would do it for Dor, just a smidgen, but more to frighten him than out of any need.

"Aaaaand, start!" the announcer called out, bringing his hand down. It seemed Mr. Alonsa was acting as referee again, despite his tendency to forget to count. She decided right then that if he didn't start counting right away, she'd just pick up her opponent and drop him off the side, rather than having to deal with waiting for the announcer to remember his job. How long had he been doing this, anyway? And how far into the future would he continue to do so?

Mr. Alonsa led the cheer as Dor connected a solid blow to Jacks' jaw. "And it looks like we're starting strong, folks! Mr. Jacks seems to be no match for Mr. Dor!" The other fist came around, slamming into the unfortunate opponent's guts, and Mr. Alonsa flinched back as Jacks keeled over. "And he's down already! No, wait! He's getting up! Shio Jacks is not going to let Mr. Dor have this won easily!"

The underdog here was like a handful of dried out reeds, lean and wiry where others had bulked out. She instantly started comparing the two fighters, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses, and had to give Jacks some credit. He was flexible and tenacious, and his ki-less speed came from his smaller size and his ability to outmaneuver his opponents. He was strong, despite the lack of visible muscles, and when he landed a kick to Dor's face he actually managed to draw blood. He was able to duck and weave between most of Dor's attacks, but in strength he was not on par with his opponent and suffered more from each hit he took. Then she felt it, a flash of ki, and Jacks went down.

Dor stood laughing over his opponent's shaking form, and raised his ki further. It wasn't much, a pitiful amount, really, but it was enough to stop Jacks from getting up steadily, and one final blow dropped him to the ground for the ten-count provided by the announcer.

"And an amazing display of power from Dor makes him our winner! Both the Crane and Turtle schools are known for these special techniques, so I'm sure we are all eagerly anticipating what is to come from Buryu Yokai! Shio Jacks is having some trouble standing up, so it looks like the medics are here to take him to the nurse room. But next up, we have Drio Cans and Tens Bull!"

Dor came down the walk from the platform, smug grin fixed on his lips. He smirked at Kokoro as he reached the entrance, but she kept her hands in her pockets and lifted her chin in defiance of his arrogance. Yes, she was looking forward to crushing this punk's dreams.

"You're going to be shaking in your boots, too," he sneered at her as he passed. In answer, she laughed.

"Hardly," she replied. She didn't even turn her head to address him, the ultimate middle finger to his attempts to intimidate her as she showed just how much a threat she considered him to be. "If you think _that_ much ki was enough to unnerve me… You know so little of the universe."

Dor stalked off, muttering something about proving her wrong, but Kokoro ignored him. Piccolo was watching her from across the arena, and she didn't doubt he had heard what was said. She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets, sensing his amusement, and gave him a scowl with full knowledge that he could read her well enough through the scarf to see it. _Yeah,_ she decided, _Roshi _so_ owes me._

* * *

_**Uploaded 9/6/14**_


	7. Chapter 7: By A Child In Play Clothes

Thanks again for the comments, **Merifaye** and **leebee14**!

Has anyone else noticed that Oolong and Puar's shapeshifting, such a key element in the first part of Dragon Ball, never comes up again in later years? In the manga it's not even mentioned, nor is it in Dragon Ball Z. Although I know they never need it again since everyone else grows so powerful, it doesn't make sense to me that everyone would just seem to forget about it. Consequently, I might or might not be making it necessary at some time in the future for Puar or Oolong to transform into something. :-P

Also, should it not be mentioned that there is a _school_ for shapeshifters? What? Is there a special trait in the sentient non-human Earth natives that allows them to shapeshift? Or for someone like Boss Rabbit to turn people into carrots? Suddenly we're all "Red Ribbon Army, oh no," and then "space aliens, yikes!" and we forget all about the crazy things Earth's inhabitants can do! Yeah, definitely going to need to bring that in.

This chapter is a little longer and I tried to see if I could fit the last scene into the next chapter, but doing that messes up the flow a little bit of this chapter and completely throws it off for the next one. So I kept it as is, even though it means the tournament starts and ends in only two chapters rather than three. And if anyone has a better name for this chapter, feel free to suggest it. I was having some titling inspiration issues.

* * *

**Chapter Seven: By A Child In Play Clothes**

"Ladies and Gentlemen, it's our final match of the Quarter-Finals, before we move on to the Semi-Finals! Salmon Steers will be going up against Buryu Yokai, a positively enigmatic individual who displayed great promise in the Preliminaries. She may be small, folks, but she can pack a wallop! And no one has managed to get a hit on her yet, she is _that_ fast."

Kokoro settled on her heels, ignoring Mr. Alonsa's commentary, and took a deep breath through her nose. There were clouds rolling in, and she could smell the rain and static electricity in the air. They wouldn't postpone this thing for a storm, would they? It would suck to have to drag herself back here.

"Now, then, fighters, are you ready?" She began to pay attention again at those words, and nodded to the announcer. He looked from one to the other and nodded back. "Right? Start!"

Steers didn't even wait for the echo to fade before he charged, teeth bared in a determined snarl. She stepped back out of his way, tracking his movements, and moved the tail of her coat from his path so he wouldn't trip over it. As light a touch as she could, then? A finger should do it, in that case.

She reached out and flicked at his neck, but Steers actually managed to avoid it. Eyes lighting up as her interest was caught, she darted around and attempted the same move. Steers backpedaled, pushing hard against her unyielding arm, and his fist passed through the air in front of her nose as she timed her avoidance to the last possible moment. Piccolo had been right to suggest this, she decided, as it made it just the slightest bit enjoyable. Dodging as late as she could was her own idea, but it just made the game more worthwhile. If she couldn't get a real fight, at least she could train her timing. She was moving a lot slower than she was capable of, but she figured she couldn't move too fast or her minuscule blow could be magnified by the extra speed.

Kokoro planted a foot and leaned backwards beneath a swinging leg as she hummed the Hokey Pokey to herself. More than seeing who was strongest, the crowd was here to see a show, and she doubted any of them would be happy if she ended it as soon as she could. Well, she could save her more powerful blows for Dor, whom she wanted hurting by the time she was through with him. He, she decided, wouldn't even have a chance to try hitting her.

In the here and now, Steers looked to be getting agitated by her humming. "Shut up!" he ordered, putting extra strength into his next blow.

She snickered and leaned out of the way. "You put your right arm in and you shake it all about," she sang, feeling childish for once. She wasn't sure if this world had that song—they should, the fashion sense looked to be based around the nineties back in her origin world. But it warbled around sometimes in the back of her mind, and it was more fun doing it while playing this twisted version of tag than it ever had been on rollerblades at skating parties.

Steers shrieked at her, and she decided she had heard enough of his shrill voice. As he charged again, this time, she whipped around and flicked her finger against the side of his neck. He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, and she turned a pointed glare on Mr. Alonsa.

The announcer stammered for a moment. "Oh- Uh- One! Two!" He had remembered to count, thank goodness. When he reached ten, with not a twitch from Steers, he cleared his throat. "Amazing! Steers has been KO'ed, and with just the tap of a finger! Buryu Yokai advances to the Semi-Finals!"

The crowd burst into cheers, and Buryu hopped down from the platform to approach the man. "The storm's not going to delay this thing, right?"

"Of course not!" Alonsa assured her, lowering his microphone. "The show must go on!"

"Good," she stated, and turned to go back to the Waiting Room.

Mr. Alonsa made the announcement as she walked away. "Ladies and Gentlemen, it looks like a storm is rolling in on us, but rain, snow, sleet, or shine, we are going on! There will be a fifteen minute intermission until the beginning of the Semi-Finals, so if you want to get an umbrella then now is the chance to do so. The gift shop carries a supply that you can purchase, and if you hold onto your ticket and hurry, there is a department store just outside of the arena where you can also purchase one. Make sure you get back in time, though, because these next two fights are sure to be intense!"

**. . . **. . .** . . .**

In the balcony above the stands, Gohan studied the thickening clouds and categorized the cloud types in his head. "It looks like there are some pretty big cumulonimbus coming," he told the others, the thunderheads still growing as they crawled in slowly. Bulma, the only other scientifically minded individual present, looked up and nodded.

"You're right. It looks like we're in for a pretty strong storm. But there are lightning rods all around the top of the stands, and you boys can make ki shields, so we should be safe. It's going to be cold and wet and miserable, but there's no way I'm missing this girl's fights."

"That's the spirit!" Roshi cheered. "Hoo, boy, Buryu would have not been happy if they had made a rain check. Hey, Oolong, can you turn into an umbrella for us?"

"Heck, no!" the pig growled. "If I have to get wet, you are, too. Just because I can turn into things doesn't mean I'm waterproof."

"What are you going on about?" Vegeta growled, diverting his attention from the platform below.

"Oolong and Puar are shapeshifters," Bulma explained. "Funny, I thought that had been mentioned. Oh, well. Hey, Yamcha, can you be my umbrella?"

Her boyfriend rolled his eyes and smiled, but wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Sure, babe," he agreed, and Gohan wrinkled his nose. It wasn't nearly as bad as what his mom and dad did sometimes, when they thought he wasn't paying attention, but he supposed it was something that was supposed to happen between people who loved each other. Just, couldn't they do it away from him? It was more than a little mentally scarring, after all.

A hand came down and ruffled his hair, and he looked up to see Piccolo with an expression that said he agreed with his young student. The giant green alien was standing right behind him, and when he realized his "green uncle" was making it easier to shield him from the rain with his cloak, he beamed up at the normally aloof Namekian. He had been a lot nicer since they had come back from Namek, and he figured it was a combination of growing closer to them and making friends, and having fused with Guru's guard, Nail. That had to have some influence on his temperament, but the boy wasn't going to mention that anytime soon.

He looked down toward the Waiting Room where Buryu had positioned herself just inside the door again. She was staring at them this time, with no fights to observe, and he made sure to wave again. Instead of waving back, she just nodded, but Gohan had been around Piccolo long enough to appreciate even that simple acknowledgement. He didn't know too many women, but if the variety of personalities that existed in men also existed in women, then he would have to say she was a lot different than Lunch, Bulma, and his mom, and especially Bulma's mom. He wasn't sure who he could even compare her to, or if he could even compare her to anyone, since he had only met her briefly. Maybe he would see more of her, and he could get to know her better? It was different, meeting a female fighter. His mom had fought a long time ago, Dad had explained, but when she got married to Goku she had settled down quite a bit. But Buryu was a fighter, and Gohan could sense it—she was strong. And she was really good, too, to be able to play with that fighter like she had. So much of her ki was hidden, and it hadn't even fluctuated in that battle.

A raindrop landed on his nose, and Gohan brushed the water away. The weird Crane guy who kept trying to intimidate Buryu was starting his fight against Tens Bull, and soon Buryu would be going up against Danu Harps. He wanted to see which one of these two would be facing Buryu, because he had no doubt in his mind she was going to win her round. In fact, if he was the sort of person to bet, then he would definitely be betting on Buryu to win the entire thing.

With a heavy patter upon the stone, the rain began to fall steadily, and a low roll of thunder told him the center of the storm was still a good distance off. Mom would have a fit if he knew he was standing out in the rain like this, but he accepted the offered shelter of the cloak and ignored the fretting voice inside his head. It was just a storm, he had been in far worse than this, fighting. Besides, the fight was far more interesting.

**. . .** . . .** . . .**

_Arrogant twit, can't wait to bring him down,_ the cross woman muttered within her mind. The scum ball had dared—_dared_—to make a pass at her, accusing her of finding him irresistible in his "obvious strength"—his words, not hers. _"Don't have to make you scared to make you shake in your boots, honey,"_ he had leered, and she had few times been so grateful for her form-concealing coat as his eyes wandered down. They had rested on the swell of her breasts, and in disgust she had shoved past him with a feral growl, communicating the only way she knew how in that moment that she wouldn't even dream of such nightmare-fuel. The game of tag with Harps didn't calm her entirely, but the focus she put into her last-minute dodging did help her to wrestle down her anger for later—at least temporarily, before she started losing it again.

Harps' foot came awfully close to hitting the tail concealed beneath her uwagi and the wide obi overtop that, and she hissed as she refocused on the moment. _Snap out of it, Kokoro,_ she ordered herself, and jumped back to give herself a few seconds to settle. Harps came after her, and she decided that she didn't have the patience to toy with him anymore; she was more than ready to take out her frustration on the responsible party.

Again she jumped back, but turned it into a flip to get some extra space. _"Focus," _a rough voice entered her mind, and she bared sharp teeth mentally at the large warrior.

_I know, I know, now get out. I don't want to kill this guy, and I'm—_

"_No excuses, Kokoro. _Focus_. Get the fool out of your head and concentrate on the one in front of you. It shouldn't be hard for you. _Do_ it."_

"Fine, Jolly Green," she muttered, fighting down the aggressive instinct her Saiyan blood produced. She was aggravated, threatened, and lashing out, and her next move against Harps had to be made carefully, or she would likely snap his neck.

Wait, if she was worried about that, maybe she should just throw him out…

It would feel good to prove her superiority over a male, she decided, planting her feet among the splashing drops to let Harps charge her with a roar. Her eyes sharpened, vision tunneling in on the aggressor, and with a sudden blur of feet and arms she had caught him, immobilized him, and had him lifted up over her head. He struggled hard, beginning to panic at her show of strength, but without any ki he was unable to stop her from carrying him to the edge of the platform and dropping him, hard, onto the grass and mud.

Harps stared up at her in shock, but she paid him no mind and stalked to the center of the platform, facing the Waiting Room. Her tail felt bushed beneath her layers, and she growled low at the discomfort.

Mr. Alonsa was stuttering again. "And— And Buryu Yokai has just dropped her opponent out of the ring! She hardly seemed to show any effort in it, even. This makes her the winner, and she will advance to the Finals! Does either finalist wish for a break before the next match?"

Piccolo's voice entered her mind again. _"You might want to take that break, or you will kill him."_

_My goal is not to kill, it is to decimate and humiliate,_ she sniped back. _You were watching and listening, you know what he said. You know how I instinctively respond to that. It is not going to get any better if I wait._ And she looked at the announcer, eyes ablaze. "There will be no break," she ordered, hearing the warning growl of thunder. "If Dor needs a break, then he might as well forfeit before I get my fists on him. Besides…" She took a breath, forcing herself to calm. "I doubt people will want to wait in the downpour and the lightning. We will finish this now, before it becomes more dangerous for all involved." Because if she had to wait any longer, her temper would be even shorter, and she didn't doubt her Yokai would be unleashed, and her ki could cause serious damage. No, she had to remain in control.

She plopped to the stone tiles in a meditative stance, knowing Piccolo was probably right, that she needed to take a moment for herself. She was stronger, she reminded herself, taking deep, even breaths. He was barely a blip on her radar, and he was just words. If she wanted she could kill him, crush him, but she was strong enough not to need to. Not him. He couldn't do anything to her. She was Kokoro, the Buryu Yokai of the East Woods—she was not a weakling anymore, and she would never again be anyone's toy or slave.

**. . .** . . . **. . .**

Piccolo growled, tensing as if alarmed and enraged, and Gohan looked up at his mentor. "What's wrong?" he asked, and the Namekian glanced down at him. "I couldn't hear what that guy said, but Miss Buryu looked upset by it. Is she okay?"

The giant alien sighed and his shoulders dropped a little, as if he were forcing himself to calm down. "Buryu has had bad experiences with men for many years, and Dor is resurrecting her animosity toward that type of man. She already had problems with his arrogance, but now he's made her feel threatened and she'll be out for blood. This fight with Harps is not going to be easy for her if she intends to repeat what she did with Steers, because she'll be fighting herself as well. If she's not careful, she might kill him if she hits too hard."

Gohan shivered against the rain and shifted the cloak over himself. He could feel the venomous bite of her ki from here, and could tell she wasn't even close to reasonable right now. She reminded him of Vegeta somehow, though less in control—because however dangerous Vegeta was, the man definitely had control over himself, despite his cold temper.

The fight began, a staggered dance that lost its grace to fury. He leaned forward, suddenly, out of the cloak's shelter, and shielded his eyes to see through the growing storm. "She's getting sloppy. He almost touched her, there. And—is she shaking?"

Piccolo hissed and Gohan glanced up to see him closing his eyes, brow furrowing. He was using his telepathy, he realized, and watched as the masked woman jerked between calming and becoming even more aggressive. Finally she stopped jumping about and faced her opponent head-on, catching him up and dropping him over the side into a puddle of mud before Gohan even realized what was happening.

"She's really mad at Dor, isn't she?" he asked slowly, quietly, and Piccolo nodded.

"As she said, she always blames a man for trying. I imagine tension has been high between them these past few days, even just from being in rival schools. He has not been helping his case today, as you have seen. She wanted to humiliate him already. Now there is little stopping her from beating him to a pulp."

The blond man still wearing sunglasses even in this foul weather had taken shelter beneath a large umbrella to keep his microphone dry. He announced the woman's win, asked if the finalists wanted a break, and Piccolo's growl told him that he had not been successful in convincing Buryu to take it. Her voice confirmed this, loud enough to carry to the balcony and the Waiting Room. The thunder was beginning to roil, and the lightning was getting closer as she shouted her challenge. "There will be no break. If Dor needs a break, then he might as well forfeit before I get my fists on him." She was still very angry, but then she seemed to calm a bit, hearing what Gohan had. "Besides…I doubt people will want to wait in the downpour and the lightning. We will finish this now, before it becomes more dangerous for all involved."

The electricity in the air was not just from the storm, Gohan realized, but her ki was settling again in a tight grasp, and he knew she was preparing herself for the fight. "Dor's not going to get out of this lightly, is he?"

Piccolo seemed to settle a little, resigning himself while at the same time almost relieved, especially when Buryu dropped into a meditative pose. "No, he is not, and he shouldn't. But she's not going to kill him, either. She can't, or else she'd be disqualified, and she's gaining control of herself once more. I think we're actually in for a bit of a show, here."

Gohan used his ki to warm himself up, but grabbed Piccolo's cloak again to block the rain. If his mom was watching on TV, then he didn't want her to think he was letting himself catch cold. At least with Piccolo's cloak, he had physical evidence that he was staying dry. "She feels powerful," he commented. "But it's all hidden."

"She is. Not as powerful as you, Vegeta, or Goku, but she is powerful." The grin Piccolo gave him was malicious, and Gohan had no doubt that his mentor actually did consider the female warrior as something of a friend. "Dor," he promised, "is going to wish he had never crossed her path. He'll soon see why she is called the Buryu Yokai. After all…" He looked back down to the ring where Dor was approaching from the Waiting Room, confidence in every step. "She was not the one who came up with that name, and it was given for a very good reason."

**. . . **. . .** . . .**

Dor's ki approached, and she opened her eyes to smirk at him. She was no longer the hissing cat, but the prowling jaguar, predatory, and a coiled viper ready to nab its prey. His step faltered, suddenly wary at the light glinting at him from her dark gaze, but his feet carried him up and settled him across from her.

"Ready, darling?" he sneered. "You may want to get up from the ground for this."

"No," she answered, her voice calm and not betraying any emotion to him. "I'll start here, thank you. You took so long, I thought I'd take a nap."

Dor snarled at her. "Suit yourself, honey," he said, and nodded to Mr. Alonsa. "We're ready, it seems."

"Okay… Uh… Start!"

The man charged, but she was no longer sitting, and was no longer in front of him. A tap to his back, and he was shoved down into the puddles of water as she stood backlit by the bright flashes of lightning that had been growing ever-closer. Holding up her hands, she made a show of putting them slowly into her pockets, and grinned at his twitching eye. "I'll beat you without even using my hands," she promised. A pause, and she considered the man clambering to his feet. "Earlier you thought your show of power was impressive. I want you to raise your ki as high as you can, no holding back. Are you agreeable?"

Dor glowered at her. "Fine, I will. And you will regret trying to make a fool out of me."

"You've already done that without me," she laughed, and with a roar he charged up.

After about half a minute, his ki settled and he sneered. "There," he told her. "This is the power that makes men shake. Are you satisfied? It must frighten you, to see how strong I am."

For the normal person, perhaps it was intimidating. For her, it was a drop in the bucket of what she'd sensed. So she smirked at him, snickering. "Frighten me that your idiocy and naïveté might be contagious, perhaps." She stepped back and spread out her hands, having removed them temporarily from her pockets. "You say that is power which makes men shake. Watch, and I will show you a piece of the power which can break the world itself to pieces."

Slowly, ever so slowly, she loosed the reigns on her ki. It crept upward, undetected, and Dor looked amused at the perceived absence before it finally began to register in his senses. It was at his level now, probably a couple hundred on a scouter, and still it climbed. And as it rose, the blood leeched out of his face until he looked sick and blue. She didn't let it go too far, just until the ground beneath their feet began to rattle, and the wind began to swirl, chasing raindrops in a cyclone. She stopped it there, having made her point to the plebeians, and stalked forward toward her frozen opponent, hands in her pockets once more.

"This is but a fraction," she confided, though not caring who heard. Piccolo knew anyway, and the others were likely going to find out sometime. "But this is all I need, more than I need. I wouldn't have even had to power up to beat you, but you were so sure that you knew power that I just had to show you reality. And you know what? What I've shown you is pitiful, and at full strength I'm still weak compared to others I know, such as Son Goku, whose name I use because you know it. You know why he's not competed this time or last? Because, even more than me, he's so far above us all that we're like ants to his power. I'm only here to fulfill a tradition. I could squash you without a thought, and it wouldn't even be a challenge. But you've managed to incur the wrath of the Yokai. Your arrogance I could have let pass with a simple humiliating defeat, but you've now added the category of degenerate to your list of character faults and you came on to _me_, who so clearly wants nothing to do with your advances." She stepped, blurred out of sight, and whispered from behind him, "So now I'm going to beat the crap out of you, and I'm going to enjoy every moment of it."

He whirled, arms up, and took a kick to the face. She was there to brush her toes against his back, sending him to face-plant against the stone, and tapped her foot when he struggled to stand. "Come on," she taunted, "you did so well in your earlier fights. Could it be that you're not actually as good as you thought you were?"

"Shut it, b##," he snapped at her, stumbling forward, and in the heady glow produced by proving her strength she simply smiled.

"Face it. A woman is stronger than you, a small, frail thing that looks like a child wrapped up in play clothes. You think with all your brawn you are so strong, and because I am small I am obviously weak, right? I've faced men like you, and I've been that weak child. _Not anymore._" He was having a hard time getting up after just a few kicks, and she sighed. "You're pathetic, and I don't know why I even bothered with you in the first place. A word of warning, while you're still capable of understanding my words, never come seek me out, and while you're at it you should stay far, far away from my forest." Her grin was feral, her eyes hard chips of cutting glass. "I am the Buryu Yokai, and you do not want to know why I have that name."

One last kick, a tap of a toe against his noggin, and he was out.

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_**Uploaded 9/9/14**_


	8. Chapter 8: Riku

As ever, thank you for reading and for adding this to your alert and favorites lists! And thank you, especially, to **Cutie Kyuubi**, **Merifaye**, and **leebee14** for your comments! Seriously, it's the comments that give me that extra bit of motivation to write, which sometimes even has me getting past writer's block. :-)

_Change log:_ The last part of this chapter is a little older in writing style as it was one of the original scenes from when I first started writing this story. Originally there wasn't anything of the tournament at all, and only two scenes from directly after, with Kokoro meeting the gang, and without Riku present. Riku had originally stayed at home and watched it all on television, and this scene was from after their training. I decided to keep it, with a good portion of the lines changed, as it is the scene where Kokoro hands off the reigns of protecting the village to her student. However, the next scene, which starts chapter nine, had to be written anew, as we hadn't yet met Riku's mother as had already been done in the original draft. So, since their relationship hadn't been established yet in this version, I decided to rewrite it completely instead of just adapting the scene to new information.

Hopefully the pacing in this chapter is okay, since I'm adding a completely new character into it. Maybe in the future I'll break the chapters up a bit different, but I'll stick with this for now.

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**Chapter Eight: Riku**

Vegeta watched, impassive, as the masked woman walked all over the pathetic weakling who had harassed her. She was mildly impressive, for a female, and rather better tempered from what he could tell than the blue woman was. And if she was telling the truth, she had a decent amount of power tucked away, more even than the human males he was forced into an acquaintance with. She certainly seemed amused enough at the scarred weakling's power level and his opinion of himself.

Kakarot's brat was leaning over the railing, and the Namek stood close behind him as they watched the fight, a glint of pride in his eyes. "What are you smug about?" he growled. "You didn't even teach her."

"No, Kami did," Piccolo agreed, "but I've still kept track of her training and she has come very far since she began."

"Awfully sentimental of you."

"Perhaps." The green alien faced forward again. "Her determination is akin to yours, in a way. No doubt she'll be going to the Briefs for help in her own training, especially when she catches wind of what is to come."

Vegeta ignored the comparison. "Having been in contact with your Kami and you, I thought she would have known by now."

"She was not strong enough," Piccolo admitted, and Vegeta snorted at the almost gentle way the Namekian said it. Clearly the taller fighter actually cared about the woman. But Piccolo ignored his response and nodded to the woman returning to the Waiting Room. "That has changed now, and I think she will actually be able to hold her own against the androids. She'll certainly do better than Tien and Yamcha."

"Hey!" the weakling protested.

Piccolo ignored him, too, and turned back to Vegeta. "I think even you would be impressed by her potential and her capabilities, should she ever show it to you. But she is wary of men, so your approach to people may prevent her from interacting with you enough to even begin to trust you for that."

"Why should I care?" Vegeta crossed his arms and scowled. "I don't need her hanging around me anyway if she's going to hinder my training. Just keep her from bothering me, and we'll have no problems whatsoever."

He wasn't able to interpret the look Piccolo was giving him, and gave up quickly on trying. He was done talking about this, and wanted nothing more to change the subject. He cast his mind about for something to distract the Namekian, but was himself distracted when a bare hint of movement from the stairway up to the balcony caught his eye. "What?" he muttered, unconsciously stepping toward it, but Piccolo brushed past him, ruffling the young brat's hair as he went.

"Leave this to me," he growled, and stalked toward the stairway with a prowling step.

**. . . **. . . **. . .**

Piccolo seized the back of a sopping wet cloak before the small interloper could react and heaved the flailing body into the air. After a moment of panic, the arms and legs stilled, and green eyes peeked sheepishly up at him from beneath a large hood that almost covered over them. "Hey," the small, wet heap squeaked, giving a small wave with his right hand. Damp blond bangs stuck to his forehead beneath the hood, but he made no attempt to brush them away from his eyes.

The Namekian snarled. "You," he bit out, feeling a strange mixture of amusement, exasperation, and annoyance as he regarded the boy hanging in his grasp, "should not be here."

The boy in the cloak scowled at him, an angered look entering his eyes. "When did you get to decide? Mom said I could be here." Piccolo shook him in the air, and the boy's hands went to grasp at the arm holding him up. "Hey, stop! You're going to break my focus, and I'm _practicing_."

Piccolo stilled, studying him as he registered the meaning of his words. He couldn't feel the boy's power level at all, and he frowned at his suspicion. "Riku," he began slowly, "does your sensei even know you were wanting to be here?"

"Well… It didn't really come up…" His grasp loosened on Piccolo's arm, and he released his own grip. With a yelp, the boy dropped to the floor with a squelching sound and his drenched cloak released some of its water upon impact. Instead of scrambling to his feet, the brat scrunched his eyes closed and bit his lip, and immediately any rise in his ki was brought under control, causing him to let out a loud sigh of relief.

"Piccolo, I'm _practicing_," Riku repeated with a whine.

"And I just helped you practice," the tall warrior shot back.

"Man, you're even worse than they said," the boy muttered, and Piccolo gave him a warning growl.

Gohan appeared at his side and tugged on his cape. "Piccolo, do you two know each other?"

His exasperation faded away, and Piccolo sighed. "Yes, Gohan. Mildly, in any case. We met once, when Buryu brought him to the Lookout for training and I stopped by to investigate what she was up to. This is her student, Riku, a boy from her village. Riku, I'll only ask this once more. Does your sensei know you're here?"

Riku climbed to his feet, revealing himself to be just a little taller than Gohan, and shuffled his feet. "Not really… And that's why I'm practicing! You _know_ she's the best ever at sensing ki—except for Kami and the Kais, and they've got that because of their positions—and so she'd know instantly the second I let just a bit of my energy go."

Piccolo grunted. "She is _not_ going to be happy you are here."

"Give me a break, I didn't leave the village undefended, I'm not that stupid. And if Sensei lets me explain before she starts scolding me, then she'll see that, too. And she usually does listen…"

"It's on your head," Piccolo relented, recognizing the stubbornness in the boy's expression. "At any rate, she's on her way here now, so you'll have to think up something good if you don't want her to get angry at your having deserted the village for the day. Now, Riku, Gohan. Gohan, Riku. There, you've met. You can meet the rest later."

Roshi didn't give much of a chance for a break, though, and immediately was before the boy, leaning forward to peer at his face, half hidden by the hood. "So you're Buryu's student, eh?"

Riku smiled and nodded. "Yup! And you must be old man Roshi, the turtle hermit?"

"Old man?" Roshi pouted, and the boy snickered, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"She knows you still perv when she's not around. So she told me if I ever met you and you started treating girls badly, I'm to do what she warned you she'd do."

The old man paled and backed away, crossing his legs and planting his staff in front of them. "Point well made. I'm just going to go over here, then…"

Gohan laughed at his father's first teacher's retreat. "Master Roshi seems pretty scared of you. Are you really strong?"

Riku shook his head. "Not me. Sensei is, but I'm not, not yet. But it's partly intent, and Roshi knows I really will do it, and so will she. Nah, I have a ways to go, and I won't ever be able to catch up to you, sorry. Kami said you're half human, half alien, so your power level is always going to be higher than I will ever hope to reach. But I'm strong enough to help defend my village, and that's all I want."

Piccolo flicked the top of Riku's head, careful to keep it very, very light. "Think of what you're going to tell your sensei yet?"

The boy gave him the stink-eye. "I was going to try the truth."

"Good plan. Now look sharp, she'll be here any second."

"Too late," Buryu's—Kokoro's—voice sounded from behind them, and Piccolo turned to observe the woman who had revealed herself to Kami as a Saiyan, who used to be human, who was from another reality and had seen events up to a certain point in one of her world's television programs. She was looking at Riku with a frown in her eyes, and Piccolo wouldn't have been surprised if she was still ill-tempered from Dor. "You had better have a great explanation, young man."

Riku backed up hurriedly, hands raised, and blurted out a string of words that mashed together and made Piccolo's ears hurt. He snarled at the boy, and Kokoro slapped his arm with the back of her hand as she walked past. "Repeat yourself, and quit cowering, Riku. I know you're not an idiot, but I want to know why you left the village, _undefended_ I might add, in the middle of a _globally televised event_, where I am front and center and _clearly_ not in a position to fight off those who would do the village harm. Now, _explain_."

Her voice was stern and hard, and Piccolo watched as Riku gulped and shivered, partly from nerves and the rest from the chill. "I did not leave it undefended," he answered slowly, finally raising his ki to warm himself up. The water dried from his clothes and cloak instantly, and the rest of the rain began bouncing off of a weak shield that wrapped around him. He rubbed his arms once, then let them drop. "Kami and Mister Popo came and said I should be here, and that they would keep an eye on things while we were gone."

Kokoro blinked, and Piccolo well understood her surprise. Opening his mind to his counterpart, he searched him out and grunted when he found the old fool in the east rather than on his Lookout in the west. "The boy is speaking the truth. Kami is northeast of here, where I've often felt your energy."

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes, and released it in a heavy sigh. "Okay. So why were you hiding from me?"

"Are you kidding? I knew you'd be mad, and it was the perfect time to practice hiding my ki. You usually can find me anywhere, so I figured suppressing my energy and burying myself in a crowd or among large ki signatures would do the trick."

"Hmm, smart." Much more relaxed now, Kokoro reached over and plucked at her student's hood, tugging it down over his eyes. "You actually managed to stay hidden until Piccolo made you angry. Watch that, emotions tend to affect ki more than you would think. If you manage to avoid me in the village for half a day, we can do whatever you want for the rest of it. And it will begin the moment you wake up on a day of your choosing, okay?"

"Yay!" Riku pumped a fist in the air, looking excited. "Hey, Sensei, how was it?"

"Boring. Dull. Way too easy. But maybe you'll find it a lot more your speed next time. You should be strong enough to last against these twits. And if none of us are there, strong enough to win."

Krillin cleared his throat to gain their attention. "I'm sorry, but am I the only one not glossing over the fact that Kami and Mister Popo are guarding some random village on the other side of the world from the Lookout, just so the kid could come here?"

"Hardly a random village," Piccolo corrected, but he could see how the former monk could view it that way. "Buryu is not your average woman, as you have seen, and Kami has come to care for her as a good friend, at the very least, if not as a child of his. And the boy's village is under near constant siege by bandits, so to have both its protectors absent requires the presence of another, and Kami can spare a day from his duties for this."

"I imagine Mister Popo will have had to fend off at least one attack," Buryu said in a mildly distracted tone, staring off at the lightning that was starting to dance closer. Focusing on Krillin, she shrugged. "The bandits tend to jump at any opportunity, and my absence is a golden time to act for them. I don't take kindly to slavers and degenerates like them, and I've built up something of a reputation in the East Woods."

"Earning you your name?" Krillin guessed.

"Someone's been talking," she remarked, glancing sidelong at Piccolo, but she didn't seem upset. "Yes, as a matter of fact. Some did end up getting away, once, and stories quickly spread of the demon laying in wait in the trees. I tend to take exception to innocents being harmed, and decided I'd teach them a lesson. They haven't learned yet. No doubt they have a backer, but I've not been able to find him yet. Anyway, we should continue this inside, or go our separate ways. Kami will need to get back to the Lookout, and this one needs dinner."

"Ooh, you could join us for dinner!" Goku suggested, almost bouncing on his heels. But Buryu shook her head, and her hand landed on her pupil's shoulder.

"Thank you, but his mother is expecting us, and she doesn't have the resources to feed Saiyans. She knew you were coming here, at least, right, Riku?"

"Yes," her pupil answered, much to Buryu's obvious relief. "She's expecting us by sundown."

"Not sticking around for the award, then?" Roshi asked, a glint in his eyes that told Piccolo he knew exactly what her answer would be.

He could sense her annoyance easily. "Hardly," she snarled. "I've lost my patience with this crowd. I've already collected the money, and Alonsa knows not to expect me in front of the cameras."

She was getting ready to leave, Piccolo realized, gathering her ki beneath her feet, and he reached out to put a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Wait a moment," he told her, not caring if it sounded more like an order or a request.

Buryu turned to him, dark eyes questioning. The Namekian glanced at Riku, judged it safe for him to hear, and looked back at his counterpart's student. "Before you leave, there is something you should know."

She listened, and at the end of it gave a quiet nod. No words were spoken as she turned away, and Piccolo let her go. The woman had a lot to consider in the next few days.

**. . . **. . .** . . .**

The crackling fire sent a waft of smoke reaching for the sky, and the scent of roasting fish filled the air as one of the large "river tuna" as she called them was rotated slowly on a spit. But war and death filled her head, not the meal at hand, and only the voice of the young boy beside her was able to bring her back from it.

Riku cleared his throat, though carefully, knowing her well enough to attempt not to startle her. "Hey, Sensei, can I have some?"

Feeling as if she were coming out of a fog, Kokoro blinked up at her student from where she sat roasting the large fish her Saiyan appetite demanded. His blond hair was wild, sticking up weirdly from the earlier rain, and bright green eyes sparkled from above wind-bitten cheeks. He was around four feet tall and still on the scrawny side at the age of twelve—or was he thirteen after the Chamber?—but he had more muscle than other kids his age and had been fully capable of carrying this fish all on his own from the river. He didn't develop nearly as fast as a Saiyan or a Saiyan/Human Hybrid like Goku or Gohan, but Kokoro considered him to be a very capable fighter in his own right. Yes, he would do well on his own, though she would make sure she was just a call away. He could more than hold his own against those who threatened his village.

She smiled, the familiar surroundings and setting putting her more at ease than even Kami had been able to achieve when she sent him home an hour before. "Your mother will have dinner ready soon, so I don't think that's a great idea. Maybe just a bite or two, but no more than that, all right?"

"Okay!" Riku beamed at her, settling down across the fire. Her coat was draped across her own log, and the white sash that usually was tied around her waist lay with it and her scarf. Her black tail whipped around, relishing the freedom, and occasionally Riku's eyes would follow it in fascination. "It's still so cool to see that," he informed her as she turned her meal to get even cooking. "I wish I could have a tail."

Kokoro smiled indulgently, allowing herself the distraction from the issue Piccolo had put before her at the arena. "It has its downsides, as you know, but I must admit it can be useful, and I regret having to hide it around everyone else. Just be careful what you wish for, and don't make any flippant wishes in front of Shenron, okay?"

"Yes, Sensei. Oh, the full moon's in a couple of days, I thought you might like to know so you can be in bed early and watch out for the sky."

"Thanks, kiddo." Kokoro breathed a sigh of relief. "I had forgotten when it was with the busyness of the tournament, and it slipped my mind to ask. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Probably go into hiding at night again." Riku leaned forward with his hands over the fire. "So why does this android thing have you so out of it?"

Kokoro looked up to watch the evening sun shining through the sparse forest canopy, a dappled patchwork of gold from the remaining leaves that had yet to surrender to the seasons. "Anything that can kill Vegeta and the others is bad news, no doubt about it. I may still be afraid of him, and thus a little biased, but I know he and Goku are the strongest there is, with the exception of this boy from the future that Piccolo spoke of. I can't ignore this, and Piccolo wouldn't have told me about it if he didn't think I could help somehow."

"Are you going to fight, then?"

"I think I have to." She opened and closed a fist. "I begged Roshi to teach me so that I could protect others, and I would be spitting on his and Kami's teachings, and my own honor and conscience, if I left them to fight alone."

"Okay." Riku studied the fire and she smiled at his calm acceptance. He had grown up during her training, and she figured he would have had to after his father was killed. She studied him for a while, then, observing the quiet strength in his spine, the firm set of his jaw, and nodded to herself. Yes, he would do just fine.

Kokoro stood and walked around the fire to kneel in front of him in the fallen leaves, and placed her hands on his shoulders to draw his attention to her face. "Listen, I'm going to need you to take care of the village for me. You've come so far, and I'll still be training you, but not as often since I'll need to be doing some training of my own and I need to go to Capsule Corp for that. So the village will be your responsibility now. Can you do it?"

The boy nodded slowly, meeting her gaze steadily. "Yes, Sensei. I'm ready."

"Good boy. I'll get a couple phones so we can keep in touch, and if you have any problems I'll just be a call away. And I'll get Bulma to make you an emergency beacon, just in case, okay? But I'm leaving Forest Haven to you."

"I can do it." Riku beamed up at her, and she made no mention of his watery eyes. "I won't let you or the village down, I swear."

She bent further and kissed the crown of his head. "I know you won't."

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_**Uploaded**** 9/14/14**_


	9. Chapter 9: Vegeta's Request

Thanks, **leebee14** and **Merifaye**. :-) And sorry for the wait, everyone it's been pretty busy with college. The next chapter is still in progress, but I figured it would be safe to upload this one for you.

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**Chapter Nine**

At Capsule Corp in West City, Vegeta was on a mission. His target, however, was nowhere to be found, and so, given no other choice, he hunted down the blue-haired female. He didn't bother with niceties when he found her, there was no time for such luxuries that she likely would have preferred.

He stalked up to her, fists clenched in frustration at his sides. "Woman, where is your father?"

"Dad?" For once, Bulma made no protest to being called by that name. Maybe it was his expression, Vegeta decided, which he couldn't quite force down from showing the turmoil in his mind. "He's at the office, but I don't think he'll be available until this evening. Is there something I can help with?"

"No." He didn't want her knowing yet, because she would tell the weakling and he didn't want this getting out. The female had been hidden away for a long time, and more subtle investigations had not yielded anything in the moments he had been able to search throughout the past couple of years. He liked to believe he could be patient, and this had definitely been a test of his patience as he began to realize the female Saiyan was either dead or actively hiding from him. Maybe she didn't realize it was him?

Vegeta turned away, muscles in his neck twitching in his frustration. Hadn't he promised her his protection? It rankled at his honor to be doubted in his word like this. "Just tell him I need his assistance with something," he muttered to the human woman.

"Well, all right." She didn't stop him from stalking back outside, and he was immensely grateful for that. He wasn't sure what had prompted this sudden desire to find Kokoro once and for all, and he didn't want to be distracted from mulling over that problem. Perhaps it was the tournament fighter, and the reminder that additional fighters could be potentially useful? But he didn't particularly want to involve the female in this, it would be too dangerous and she was too weak last he saw her. Maybe it was just the ferocity with which Buryu handled Dor that reminded him of a Saiyan. For a moment he had actually considered that it might be Kokoro herself under that mask, but immediately he dismissed the thought. Aversion to men aside, Kokoro had been too docile, too…submissive, was the word he wanted. This Buryu Yokai was clearly not the sort to just do as she was told, no questions asked.

With a growl, Vegeta tossed the thought away. It didn't sit well, not knowing these things. Maybe he should take on a more active search for the female. The old scientist might be able to help him there, so he would start with that.

**. . . **. . . **. . .**

"Mom, we're home!"

Kokoro caught the door before it could bang against the wall and closed it gently behind her as Riku ran ahead. By the smell of it, Miu had spaghetti going for dinner, and her heart clenched even as her mouth watered at the prospect of such a familiar meal from her own home Before. There was always a bittersweet nostalgia whenever Miu made the dish, an exotic favorite at home since her mother had been American. She imagined it had been a difficult transition for her mother to move to Japan, like she had to this strange new Earth with its strange clash of cultures. She remembered now that there had been pyramids, even, until Piccolo destroyed them in his training. She would have to rant at him for that.

The thought made her grin, and she let it loose as she paused to unwind the scarf from around her head. She could rant at people! Well, only Piccolo for now, but if she ever told them she was from another reality then she would be free to scold them to her heart's content. She had a lot to say to Bulma about her moments of idiocy when it came to men, Roshi had already faced her wrath on multiple occasions, Yamcha needed to decide once and for all if he was going to stick with Bulma or not if she remembered correctly, Chi-Chi needed to have it explained that Gohan could still be a brilliant scholar despite his training to be a warrior, Vegeta— …and her train of thought died there with a cold shiver, not even willing to conjure the image of how he might react to a rant from her. Or, even what his reaction would be to finding out she knew of Raditz and Nappa's deaths ahead of time.

She folded the scarf, placing it on the back of the couch in the living room, and scrubbed her hands across her face. And there it was, what she always avoided: Vegeta, and the idea of him finding out who she was. Had he even been looking for her? She'd sensed his energy moving around the planet, sometimes, but she wasn't sure if he was looking for high ki levels or if he was just killing time, or something.

"Long day?"

Kokoro turned to face the blonde woman who entered from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a bright yellow towel. Riku had gotten it for his mother's birthday, saying the color reminded him of the woman who had become something like another mother or an aunt to Kokoro. With the way Miu had gotten all sappy over it, an outsider would have thought it was a bundle of flowers. But practical things sometimes were the best, Kokoro was discovering more and more often. The widow did what she could to provide for her son, but the two were unable to afford many luxuries. Honestly, if Kokoro hadn't managed to sneak some groceries into the storeroom—though Miu was probably well-aware of where they came from—then her participation in the meals probably would have drained the tiny family of funds long ago.

"Longer even than I expected," she confirmed, stretching her arms over her head with a muffled groan at the way her back ached. She left the sash around her waist, as, while her name and face had been revealed to Miu, her identity as a Saiyan had not been. It was for this reason—aside from not wanting to make Miu feel guilty for being unable to feed her properly—that she often ate a big meal before returning to the house for dinner. It was going to be even more difficult to keep up with it all when she went to Capsule Corp, she suspected, but she would have to deal with it.

Miu picked up easily on how she wilted at the thought. "What's wrong? Riku seems subdued, even, and that boy is the definition of lively."

Kokoro shook her head. "Nothing bad happened, don't worry. But something's coming, something I need to train for, and I think that I'll need to go to West City for that. I handed off the role of Protector to Riku this afternoon."

"Oh." Miu's hands twisted up in the towel. "When will you be leaving?"

"I'll wait a couple days," she decided on the spot. "I challenged Riku to a game of hide-and-seek, and I intend to fulfill that promise. And I need to prepare, and explain to the village that I will be absent. It is simply not possible for me to just up and leave, nor do I wish to."

The tension in Miu's hands left, and the woman smiled. "Good. That's good. Come, dinner is ready and Riku's drooling is leaving puddles on the floor."

Kokoro laughed and removed her coat, folding it up and leaving it on the floor. "Impatient brat," she said fondly, and followed Miu into the kitchen for the meal.

**. . .** . . . **. . .**

"_Someone, help me, please! Someone, please, help me, save my son! Please! Please, help!"_

_Her clothing torn, her skin scratched and filthy, Kokoro ducked through the screaming crowd and leapt over toppled stalls. A woman was crying, her anguish echoing what she herself had once felt when her own family was in danger. She had failed them then; she wouldn't fail this woman now._

"_What is it? What's happened?" she demanded of the grieving mother the instant she reached her. The poor woman's blonde hair was torn out of its bindings, and her face was smeared with blood, mud, and tears. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot when she raised her head from equally filthy hands, and she looked at Kokoro as if she were an angel sent from heaven. _

"_It's my son," she gasped, "Riku. They— they took my boy! Please, you have to help me!"_

_Kokoro knelt in front of the woman and gripped her shoulders. She figured she must look frightening herself, head wrapped like a mummy and her entire body smelling of death and ruin, but she offered what comfort she could. "I'll get him back, I promise. What does he look like? And did you see which way they went?"_

_The woman raised a shaking hand and pointed, face buried once again in her other palm. "He— He has blond hair like me, and— and his father's green eyes. He's only nine, why would they take him?"_

_She knew the answer, but she also knew it would be counterproductive to tell it to the boy's mother. Slavery, sport, maybe he put up a fight and they wanted to teach him a lesson. So she put a hand on the woman's hand and stood up, moving off in the direction she had pointed. "Get to somewhere safe," she ordered. "I'll bring the boy to you as soon as I have him."_

_Kokoro was gone before the woman could formulate an answer. Five minutes in a ki-powered flat run later, she came upon the bandits' camp, a temporary setup far enough away not to have been noticed but close enough to attack from effectively. Raiding parties had started to return, groups of ten carrying captives and stolen goods. She watched carefully as the prisoners were dropped into a pit covered over with a wooden cage, and braced herself in anticipation. She couldn't take on all of them head-on, not yet—she had only been training for a month with Roshi, and all her other skills were only ones she had picked up on her own in the six months before going to him. But sneaking…this was something she had trained herself to do for years, her own survival depending upon not being noticed. If she could get down there without being seen, she had a chance at getting the villagers free. _

_The young woman settled herself behind her chosen tree to wait, knowing her chances were best if she waited for nightfall. There was a crescent moon tonight, thank goodness, or Kami, or whoever and whatever. She hadn't decided what to do about her tail yet, figuring it was something she didn't want to consider lightly as it wouldn't grow back without a wish, so she had taken to keeping an eye on the moon cycle, hiding away during the night at the time around the full moon. _

_She looked up through the leaves to the darkening sky above. Master Roshi would be wondering where she was, but he would understand. He knew she wasn't normal, and would wait for her to return from wherever she had wandered off to this time. She always came back, always returned for the training which had become her life._

_The shadows strengthened in intensity as day retreated to the far side of the world. One of the bandits started up a generator, turning on strategically placed golden lights around the camp, then retreated into one of the Capsule Houses. Now it was just the perimeter guards and those stationed at the cage, and these she could feasibly take out. If she was quick and quiet, then she knew she could do this._

_The first guard fell with a quiet gurgle. She struck at the neck, aiming to knock out but also not checking to see if he was alive after that. There was some small measure of guilt in the idea that she might have killed him, but she assuaged that with the knowledge that these men had no problem with ruining peoples' lives with murder and slavery. It was her own kidnappers all over again; this time, though, she could fight back._

_She got the last guard out of the way with cold efficiency, and as her tail cramped beneath her sash she remembered how much savagery she was capable of by the mixed curse and blessing of her blood. She would have to be wary of that, if she didn't want to go giving herself a head wound. But for now the prisoners had begun to notice the acton outside their bars, and some reached grasping fingers for her. "Help us!" some whispered, having the sense to keep quiet. She sliced through the cage with her ki, and when the first captives climbed out of the pit she directed them to the north. _

"_Go that way," she whispered, "and no noise! There are more bandits inside the houses. Wait until you can no longer hear them, go further, and then run back to the village as quick as you can. I'll deal with these goons."_

_They followed her instructions carefully, and soon only one lingered. He had been helped out of the pit, being too short to climb out himself, but for some reason he stuck around. "Can I help?"_

_She took in his blond hair and green eyes and short appearance and shook her head. "No, kiddo, you get back to your mother. She's missing you, and is very worried."_

"'_Kay." He watched as she snuck up to a truck holding explosives and crept after her. "Are you making sure the bad guys can't hurt us again?"_

"_Shh. Yes, this batch, at least, if I can catch them by surprise. I'm only a student myself, so I can't fight as well as I'd like. Now _go home_, Riku."_

_Riku pouted at her and retreated. "I'll be waiting at the edge of the run zone," he promised. _

"Riku_—" But he was already gone, and she couldn't tell him to keep on going. Well, she would just have to pick him up and run when the fireworks started, she decided, and dropped her first bundle of explosives next to the nearest house. _

**. . . **. . .** . . .**

"Ah, Vegeta, Bulma said you were looking for me?" The old scientist was in his lab now, tie tossed next to his computer and arms elbow-deep in some mechanical device. He appeared to be building something engine related, but Vegeta didn't overthink it.

"Yes," he said, dropping into the chair next to Dr. Brief with little concern for decorum. "I need you to search for someone for me, a woman… Her name is Kokoro, and she arrived on this planet with Raditz four years ago."

Dr. Brief's hands stuttered, and he put down his tools to prevent breaking something. "Another Saiyan?" he asked in surprise. "I thought you and Goku were the only ones left."

Vegeta looked away. "Her existence was kept a close secret as Frieza would have killed her in an instant had he discovered who she was. So we sent her here to Earth when Raditz came for Kakarot, and I suspect she's been blending in with the population or hiding in the wilderness somewhere ever since. She would potentially be…useful in the coming fight, given her Saiyan blood, especially if she's been training as I ordered her to. But she is hidden from me, and I cannot sense her. She might have also learned to suppress her power level, whatever there might be of it."

"Oh." The scientist blinked rapidly, then turned to his computer. "Do you have a surname I can use?"

"Saiyans have no surnames, and if she did then she didn't say."

"Well, I'll search for that one name, Kokoro, and you can browse through the results. I can't promise anything, but if she's obtained documentation in order to fit in and didn't change her name then she will be in here."

The prince struggled with his next words, but the matter was important enough to him that he didn't entirely mind saying them. "I…thank you, Dr. Brief. That is all I require."

"Oh, it is no problem at all, dear boy. But, Vegeta, I should probably warn you that this Kokoro of yours may not want to be found. If she's learned how to use ki and sense others with it, then wouldn't she have sensed you and sought you out by now?"

Vegeta stood and marched away. Dr. Brief was right, of course, and he had been tumbling that around in his own mind for the past two years. Why would she seek him out, as frightened as she had been? She didn't trust him, she had said, and given her manner of escape from Raditz's pod this fact hadn't changed. So why would she even welcome his search for her?

Dr. Brief called out after him. "I'll let you know when the list is done!"

He nodded and walked on. He wondered if she had cut off her tail as Kakarot had and, also, if she was even still alive. It would be nice, he decided, but he wasn't going to bank all his hopes on that. Despite her promise not to die, she had seemed broken enough when with them to take her own life, and weak enough that she could have been murdered easily. And having had a taste of freedom, would she want to risk losing it in finding him?

He probably wouldn't, he admitted finally to himself, and with a ragged sigh he went to get back to training.

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_**Uploaded 11/24/14**_


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